MR. W. H. GUTHRIE-SMITH

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 5, 5 July 1940, Page 9

MR. W. H. GUTHRIE-SMITH

The death of Mr. William Herbert Guthrie-Smith is reported in a Press Association message from Napier today. He was 79 years of age. A man of wide reading and many interests, Mr. Guthrie-Smith was perhaps best known in New Zealand and further afield as a naturalist who had the unique faculty of being able to transmute his experiences into words that made up living pictures. As one of his admirers wrote of him some years ago, "He has sensed and savoured Nature to the fullness of his power, but not to satiety. He could go on for decades, and would always believe that he was only touching the fringe of the infinite scheme of things." He shunned the limelight which his work, "Tutira," in particular, cast upon him, but his calm philosophy of life, his deep range of reading and thinking, and his contacts with Nature made him a delightful companion and host at his sheep station, "Tutira," about 30 miles north of Napier. His works included "Birds of the Water, Wood, and Waste," and "Mutton Birds and Other Birds." and he was a frequent contributor of newspaper and other articles on aspects of natural life. Mr. Guthrie-Smith was born at Helensburgh, Scotland, in 1861. and arrived in New Zealand in 1880. After a period as a farming cadet on a station near the Peel Forest. Canterbury, he went to Hawke's Bay, and in 1882 entered upon the tenure of "Tutira," where he remained until the time of his death. Originally the station took in more than 20.000 acres, but its area was reduced by subdivision. Mr. Guthrie-Smith finally retaining the homestead. He was a member of the New Zealand Institute, the Hawke's Bay Club, and the New Zealand Red Cross Society. During the Great War he was attached to the No. 3 London General Hospital.