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Emily Margaret Wood

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Emily Margaret Wood pictured with the Liverpool Naturalists' Field Club in 1901.

Emily Margaret Wood (1865 – 1907) was an English botany teacher and painter of scientific illustrations and Arts and Crafts ceramics.

Life

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Born 23 August 1865 in Calcutta, India, she moved to England in 1871.[1][2] In 1903 she was working as a botany teacher at the Liscard School of Science and Art.[3]

Botany

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Serving as secretary and botanical referee of the Liverpool Naturalists' Field Club for twenty years,[2] her botanical contributions included collecting and publishing on plants of Denbighshire,[4] illustrating Green’s Flora of the Liverpool District, revising George Atkinson’s First Studies of Plant Life for a British audience,[5] and making over 800 plant drawings.[6][7] She also led botanical expeditions and gave free lectures at Liverpool's Free Public Library.[8]

Ceramics

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From the late 1890s she was commissioned as a ceramics painter by Sir William Forwood for the Della Robbia Pottery, part of the Arts and Crafts movement's reaction against mass-production.[9] She painted Art Nouveau-influenced vases and tiles with botanical and classical scenes, including executing a design by Ford Madox Brown,[10] and also worked as a book-keeper for the project.[11]

References

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  1. ^ Hawley, Kathleen C. (2001). "The lives and works of the women artists at the Della Robbia Pottery Birkenhead in late Victorian and Edwardian England". PhD Thesis: 199. doi:10.24384/tx3k-fp63.
  2. ^ a b "Miss Emily Margaret Wood" (PDF). Journal of Botany, British and Foreign. XLV. 1907.
  3. ^ The gardening world illustrated : a weekly paper exclusively devoted to all branches of practical gardening. Vol. v.20(1903). London: Brian Wynne. 1903. p. 25.
  4. ^ Wynne, Goronwy (1993). Flora of Flintshire: The Flowering Plants and Ferns of a North Wales County. Gee. p. 23. ISBN 978-0-7074-0224-6.
  5. ^ Atkinson, George Francis; Atkinson, George Francis; Wood, Emily Margaret (1908). First studies of plant life. London: Ginn.
  6. ^ Desmond, Ray (1994-02-25). Dictionary Of British And Irish Botanists And Horticulturists Including plant collectors, flower painters and garden designers. CRC Press. p. 753. ISBN 978-0-85066-843-8.
  7. ^ Ogilvie, Marilyn; Harvey, Joy (2003-12-16). The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science: Pioneering Lives From Ancient Times to the Mid-20th Century. Routledge. p. 1394. ISBN 978-1-135-96342-2.
  8. ^ Liverpool (England).; Liverpool (England) (1879). Report of the (Free) Public Library, Museum (Liverpool). Vol. 26-44 (1879-1896). p. 22.
  9. ^ Greenhalgh, Paul (2020-12-24). Ceramic, Art and Civilisation. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4742-3973-8.
  10. ^ "Gideon a fine della robbia two-tile panel designed by ford madox brown | Woolley and Wallis". www.woolleyandwallis.co.uk. Retrieved 2024-05-27.
  11. ^ England), Williamson Art Gallery and Museum (Birkenhead (1980). Della Robbia Pottery, Birkenhead 1894-1906: An Interim Report. Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Department of Leisure Services. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-904582-02-4.
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