MR. S. PERCY SMITH.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 17789, 11 February 1920, Page 6

MR. S. PERCY SMITH.

A FAMOUS ETHNOLOGIST. The bestowal of the Hector Medal for scientific research upon Mr. S. Percy Smith on Friday last by the New Zealand Institute was in recognition of his long and valuable work In Ethnology. Information has just been received in the Dominion that one of the oldest antiquarian societies in the world, of which Sir Isaac Newton was a member, has recently elected Mr. Percy Smith an honorary member in recognition of his singular and extensive knowledge of the folk lore of East Anglia, as well as his historical work in this Dominion. MR. PERCY SMITH’S CAREER. Mr. S. Percy Smith, F.R.G.S., president of the Polynesian Society, was born in Lincolnshire, and came out to New Zealand as a child in the very early 'forties. His father was one of the Taranaki' pioneers; the Stephenson Smiths, Hursthouses, Richmonds, Atkinsons, and other families were among the makers of the New Plymouth settlement. From his earliest days in Taranaki Mr. Percy Smith knew the Maori people intimately, and in those years before the native wars began he laid the foundations of a friendship with the tribes which developed into a close and sympathetic study of their ancient history, 'traditions, folk lore, and religious beliefs. At the age of about sixteen he entered the Provincial Survey Office at New Plymouth, under Mr. Carrington, the pioneer surveyor of the settlement, and there was thoroughly grounded in the profession in which he attained such distinction. He and his cousin C. Wilson Hursthouse, while yet lads, carried out survey work and field sketching under fire in the i Maori inter-tribal warfare on the i Waitara which preceded the out- i break of Wiremu Kingi’s rebellion in 1860. In 1857-58 the two young surveyors and two other Taranaki settlers made an adventurous journey up the Mokau River, thence to Taupo and Rotorua, returning via Wanganui, a canoeing and walking tour which occupied four months. In 1859 Mr. Percy Smith was sent to the Kaipara as Government surveyor, and remained in the Auckland district for about five years, carrying out a great deal of important survey work and Native land purchases. When he returned to Taranaki the province was distracted by war, and the task of the surveyor in cutting boundaries and laying out military settlements was often attended with great risk. Maori snipers frequently took shots at the surveyors from the edge of the bush, and on one occasion Mr. Percy Smith had a very narrow escape from death while riding with Mr. Carrington and several others through the hostile country where the town of Hawera now stands. A party of Hauhtfus lying in ambush in the fern poured a volley into the party at a range of a few yards, but fortunately the bullets flew wide, and the surveyors galloped off unhurt. Mr. Percy Smith carried on survey work, often interrupted by the Hauhaus, until after the end of the war in 18 69, and in the early 'seventies he was sent to Auckland. He made a triangular survey of the RotoruaTaupo country, and was, in fact, the pioneer map-maker of a great deal of the wonderful country over which the tourist travels to-day. In the beginning of the ’eighties, when chief surveyor of the Auckland district, he laid out the Government township of Rotorua. In 1886 he wrote a valuable report on the Tarawera eruption. Eventually he became head of the Lands and Survey Department in New Zealand, and held that appointment until his retirement from the Government service. During his official life Mr. Percy Smith was frequently called upon to undertake special work of an important character. In the ’eighties he was sent up to the Kermadec Islands in the Government steamer Stella to take possession of the group for the New Zealand Government. In 1901 he spent four months on Niue (Savage) Island, one of New Zealand’s tropical possessions, as Government Resident; he framed a system of laws for the island, and on his return he wrote a book entitled “Niue-Fekai (or Savage Island) and its People” (1903). Ever since 1892, when the Polynesian Society was founded, Mr. Percy Smith has been the editor of the Society's Journal, the volumes of which form a mine of expert information on the Maori and Polynesian race. He himself has been one of the largest contributors to the Journal, and he is certainly the foremost authority on the origin, migrations, history, and folk-lore of the Native people. His travels in the South Sea Island bore fruit in a book "Hawaiki,” which is the standard work to-day on the whence of the Maori. Other books from his pen, written in a charming style and with a vast amount of first-hand information about the ancient tribes, are “The Peopling of the North,” and “Maori Wars of the Nineteenth Century.” His latest work, “History and Traditions of the West Coast North Island of New Zealand” (1911), is a complete historical record of Taranaki from its earliest times to the foundation of British settlement; there is no book in existence in which the story of anyone district is so completely covered. For seventy years Mr. Percy Smith has “known the Natives of the West Coast, but the scope of his extraordinarily close and diligent work in Native history has taken in every part of the North Island and a good deal of the South Island as well. New Zealand historians in the generations to come will find an enormous amount of material in the matter which Mr. Percy Smith has amassed and recofded with such detail and accuracy.