Ethel Mary Wood


Ethel Mary Wood was the daughter of Quintin Hogg, a businessman and philanthropist who established the Regent Street Polytechnic, the largest London-based adult education provider of its day. Wood inherited her father’s strong religious convictions and philanthropy, serving with the London War Pensions Committee, the Winter Distress League, various women’s organisations, and as governor of her father’s Polytechnic. She was made a C.B.E. in 1920.

Personal life

Wood started collecting Bibles in earnest in 1936. Her notebook records the purchase of a 1550 edition of Coverdale’s Bible as follows: ‘This was my first old Bible, bought purely out of interest, but the joy & benefit I found in studying it inspired me with the desire to possess a copy of every English translation & so started my ‘collection’.’
Over the next fourteen years Wood acquired an impressive library of English Bibles and books on biblical studies, through purchase, gift, and chance. Wood acquired several exceptional volumes formerly owned by the famous Bible collector Francis Fry through the 1937 Sotheby’s sale of the library of H. H. Gibbs, Lord Aldenham, and her notebook records, with evident satisfaction, how much less she paid for them than Gibbs. In 1950 Wood generously deposited her collection in Senate House Library. Supplemented by additional volumes, her donation became a bequest upon her death in 1970.