Herbert Guthrie-Smith


William Herbert Guthrie-Smith FRSNZ was a New Zealand farmer, author and conservationist.

Life

William Herbert Smith was born in Helensburgh, Scotland in 1862. His father was an insurance broker.
In 1880 he emigrated to New Zealand. In September 1882 he leased Tutira, a sheep station in central Hawke's Bay, which was his home for the rest of his life. In 1901 Guthrie-Smith married Georgina Meta Dennistoun Brown in Scotland. Their daughter, Barbara, was born in 1903.
After the First World War he met Beatrix Dobie who was exhibiting her work at the Canterbury Society of Arts Gallery. They formed the connection that would lead to her providing the illustrations for his book Tutira: The Story of a New Zealand Sheep Station.
His books and photography, especially Tutira: The Story of a New Zealand Sheep Station, graphically document the impacts of human activity on New Zealand's unique environment.
Tutira: The Story of a New Zealand Sheep Station' was published in 1921. It documented the impact of humans on New Zealand's environment in an easy reading, non-scientific yet accurate manner. It is an internationally acclaimed classic of ecological writing and was New Zealand's first significant environmentalist publication. In 2003 Michael King wrote:
“Our first ecological book, and still our best example of this genre. The transformation of New Zealand from bushlands to grasslands farming is anatomised in this close examination of the effects of plant and animal introductions on one piece of Hawke’s Bay.”
Before his death in 1940 he revised and added to Tutira. The revised edition was published in 1953.
Guthrie-Smith died on 4 July 1940 at Tutira. He was buried at Tutira, and his obituary appears in Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand 1868–1961.

Awards

William Herbert Guthrie-Smith was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 1924.

Guthrie-Smith Trust

The Guthrie-Smith Trust was founded in 1942 after Barbara Absolom, daughter of Herbert Guthrie-Smith, donated 800 hectares of land to it to administer for the benefit of the people of New Zealand educational and recreational purposes. The remaining 90 hectares now includes a 20,000 tree arboretum, which opened to the public in 2013, and an education centre.