FORESTRY EXPERT

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19332, 24 May 1937, Page 9

FORESTRY EXPERT

LATE MR. E. PHILLIPS TURNER

.MANY YEARS OF STATE SERVICE

Mr. E. Phillips Turner, whose death is reported from Hamilton, retired from the office of Director of Forestry on March 31, 1931.

Mr. Turner was born in England, and came to New Zealand with his parents in 1870. Later, owing to the depressed state of the country, they went to Tasmania, where he received his education at the Hutchina School, and by private tuition. At, the age of 16 he went to sea, but 12i months of that life was sufficient to satisfy him. The year 1882 was spent mainly in private study in England, but towards the end of that year he returned to Tasmania. After a period of further private study and a short experience ot farming in Tasmania, Mr. Turner came to NewZealand in 1884. He took up surveying, and passed his examinations for that profession in 1887. During the next few vears Mr. Turner was surveying in different parts of New Zealand and in New South Wales, and in 1891 he accepted a Government appointment to carry out mining surveys on the West Coast silver field of Tasmania. Mr. Turner returned to New Zealand in 1894, and joined the Government Survey Department in Auckland. In 1908 he was appointed to the head office of the. Lands Department as Inspector of Scenic Reserves for the Dominion. In 1913 he was appointed secretary of the Royal Commission on Forestry, and in the 'following year was a member of the Royal Commission on the reservation of scenery along the Wanganui River.

When forestry was made a distinct branch of the Lands Department in 1918 Mr. Turner was pul in charge. In 1919 an independent Forestry Department was created, with Mr. Turner as head, with the title of Secretary of Forestry, and the following year the department was reorganised as the State Forest Service, with Mr. L. M. Ellis as director and Mr. Turner in charge of the administrative side as Secretary of Forestry. When Mr. Ellis resigned in 1928 Mr. Turner was appointed his successor, a position which he held until 1931.