His eldest sister Amy[8] was subsequently in charge of the younger siblings until his father remarried—to Elizabeth Anne née Freeman—when Cecil was 13.

The Wood children did not welcome their new mother and Cecil felt loneliness and resentment, to both his father and his stepmother, which lasted into adulthood.

When he was 12, he received a scholarship that allowed him to attend courses at the School of Art at Canterbury College in the evenings and on Saturdays.

It is unclear why Wood chose architecture but it is assumed that the career of his uncle, the noted British architect Norman Shaw, was a consideration.

Two major commissions that the office worked on during Wood's time were the Hyman Marks block of Christchurch Hospital and the homestead for Sir Heaton Rhodes, Otahuna.

Wood took a four-year diploma course at Canterbury College from 1894, where Samuel Hurst Seager was his teacher.

In his first year at the college, Seager encouraged Wood to enter one of his designs to a competition run by the magazine The Australasian Builder and Contractors' News.

It is not known for certain what designs Wood worked on but it is assumed that he had input to the Canterbury Hall (1899–1900), which created much publicity for Ballantyne and Clarkson.

[19] Wood had received architectural training from both Strouts and Seager under the English tradition and it was thus a logical step for him to at some stage go to England himself to become more familiar with this genre.

The branch was headed by the architect William Riley and their task was to create social housing so that the slums could be removed from central London.

It was not just a stimulating working environment where Wood was surrounded by young and progressive architects, but also a highly political field where many of the underlying ideas of how to deal with the underclasses of society were based in socialism.

[26] In 1903, Wood joined the practice of Robert Weir Schultz, with the office located at Gray's Inn Square.

Wood passed the RIBA Intermediate Examination in November 1904 while employed with Schultz and that would have allowed him to become an Associate, but he did not apply until 1919.

Wood's perspective of the How Green House was featured in the magazine British Architect in May 1906 and received a favourable review.

[29]The view of the garden front, cleverly drawn in coloured chalk, shows how a house may be broadly treated and well bound together in line and mass, whilst being very picturesque.

[33] Wood and Seager turned their attention to the upcoming International Exhibition, which was to be held in North Hagley Park from November 1906.

The Liberal Government had passed the Workers' Dwelling Act 1905, with the same philosophy as the projects that Wood had worked on in London.

They won the South Island section of the competition for a model workers' house and their design was built on the exhibition grounds.

After the International Exhibition closed in April 1907, their building was moved to 52 Longfellow Street in Sydenham where it still stands today.

The local media reacted badly to the designs, which lacked typical elements that were common at the time and present in the other 20 houses.

Two of the designs produced between 1907 and 1909 are credited to Munnings without doubt: the Convent Chapel in Barbadoes Street[45] and a church in Merivale.

[47] In 1906, Wood had produced an early perspective for the project but this is considered a reflection of his skill in preparing drawings, with Munnings credited as being the architect in contemporary reporting by The Press.

[50] Opportunities for Wood and Munnings to gain experience arose when Seager travelled to Europe in March 1907, putting the partners in charge of the firm's projects.

[52] And on 30 January 1909, the three architects announced that they dissolved their partnership effective that day, with existing commissions remaining with Wood and Munnings at office No.

[1] Wood never entered any architectural competitions once in private practice[65] but was held in high regard by the profession as evidenced by the fact that he was appointed judge at the three largest competitions during his time: for the Auckland War Memorial Museum (1922), the Auckland Civic Centre (1924), and the National Art Gallery and Museum in Wellington.

[67] Wood received a commission from Harry Knight to design a homestead for his property at Racecourse Hill near Darfield.

[h][74] He designed many heritage buildings in New Zealand including Wellington Cathedral of St Paul and the Memorial Dining Hall at Christ's College.

[75] He was one of three prominent New Zealand architects in the inter-war period; the others were W. Gray Young (Wellington) and William Gummer (Auckland).

The façade facing Rhodes Street has a steep pitch and this design element was adopted by other local architects for domestic buildings.