Stephenson Percy Smith

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Stephenson Percy Smith
(ca.1908)

Stephenson Percy Smith , short Percy Smith (born June 11, 1840 in Beccles , Suffolk , England , † April 19, 1922 in New Plymouth , New Zealand ) was a New Zealand surveyor, ethnologist , author of various books and co-editor of the Journal of the Polynesian Society .

Life

Stephenson Percy Smith was on 11 June 1840, the eldest son of Mr and Mrs Hannah Hurst House and John Stephenson Smith in Beccles in the county of Suffolk in England born. Smith's father was a timber and grain dealer and later employed in the civil service. On August 9, 1849, the family embarked in London on the Pekin , a New Zealand Company ship , with the destination New Plymouth , New Zealand. Smith's mother's brother was already living there and persuaded his family to follow suit. They reached Wellington on December 26, 1849 and settled in New Plymouth in February of the following year.

Professional career as a surveyor

Smith went to school first in New Plymouth and later in Omata , but left in 1854 to work on the family farm. In February 1855 he got a job as a cadet at the land surveying office and was taken on as an assistant for land surveying after his two-year training. During his training, Smith was in the country for long periods of time and was often in contact with the Māori . In February 1857 he and four colleagues climbed Mount Taranaki . From January 4, 1858, a year before Ferdinand von Hochstetter and Julius von Haast visited the area around Lake Taupo and Ruapehu and Tongariro , Smith and four colleagues went on an expedition from New Plymouth , some 600 miles on foot by canoe or on horseback, across the Volcanic Plateau of the North Island down to Wanganui .

In October 1859, Smith was in the Native Land Purchase Office (office for the purchase of land from Māori place of birth) to Auckland displaced and worked for the Department long four years north and east of Auckland as a surveyor.

In 1862 he met Mary Anne Crompton , daughter of a member of the Taranaki Provincial Council in Auckland , know and married her on April 23 of the following year. In March 1865, Smith returned to Taranaki with his wife . From there he traveled to almost the entire country of the North Island, including the Chatham Islands, for his work . In 1871 Smith moved with his family back to Auckland , where he was promoted to the first geodetic surveyor and chief surveyor of the Provincial District of Auckland in 1877 . In 1881 he was promoted to assistant to the general surveyor and in 1888 to plenipotentiary of the Crown Land for the Auckland District . In January 1889 he was appointed general surveyor and secretary of the Land and Mining Department, positions he held until his retirement on October 30, 1900.

Engagement as an ethnologist

During his tenure as a surveyor, Smith gained extensive experience of the Māori way of life, tradition and culture, and of dealing with them. He learned their language and got to know their myths and historical traditions.

Together with Edward Robert Tregear he founded the Polynesian Society in 1892 and was co-editor of The Journal of the Polynesian Society . Both assumed that the Māori culture was about to die out, and their intention in establishing the society and its activities was to preserve knowledge about them before it was lost.

Smith was a self-taught student of the Māori ethnology and their origins. Through his publications during his 30-year career in the Polynesian Society, he gained respect and recognition in professional circles. He was in contact with the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland and the Royal Geographical Society in London , the Hawaiian Historical Society in Hawaii and the Società di antropologia d'Italia in Prato near Florence .

Honor and death

In 1920 Smith was awarded the Hector Memorial Medal by the Royal Society of New Zealand for his services .

Eleven years after the death of his wife, Stephenson Percy Smith died on April 19, 1922 in New Plymouth , leaving behind four children.

In 1951 the New Zealand Institute issued a commemorative medal in his honor.

Works

  • 1858 - Notes of a journey from Taranaki to Mokau, Taupo, Rotomahana, Tarawera and Rangitikei . 1858 (English, diary about the travels from Taranaki to Taupo and the Rotorua district ; 1953 reissued by the Taranaki Herald, New Plymouth ).
  • 1886 - The eruption of Tarawera : a report to the Surveyor-General . New Zealand Government , Wellington 1886 (English).
  • 1898 - The peopling of the North: notes on the ancient Māori history of the Northern Peninsula and sketches of the history of the Ngāti-Whātua tribe of Kaipara , New Zealand . Whitcombe & Tombs , Wellington 1898 (English, reissued in 1998 by Kiwi Publishers, Christchurch ).
  • 1898 - Hawaiki: the whence of the Maori, first published in 1898 . Whitcombe & Tombs , Wellington 1898 (English).
  • 1902 - Niue: the island and its people . In: Journal of the Polynesian Society . Polynesian Society , New Plymouth 1902 (English, reissued in 1983 by the Institute of Pacific Studies & the Niue Extension Center of the University of the South Pacific ).
  • 1904 - Wars of the northern against the southern tribes of New Zealand in the nineteenth century . Whitcombe and Tombs , Wellington 1904 (English).
  • 1907 - together with Edward Tregear, Francis Edwin Lawes : A vocabulary and grammar of the Niué dialect of the Polynesian language . New Zealand Government , Wellington 1907 (English).
  • 1910 - Māori wars of the nineteenth century: the struggle of the northern against the southern Māori tribes prior to the colonization of New Zealand in 1840 . Whitcombe & Tombs , Christchurch 1910 (English).
  • 1910 - History and traditions of the Maoris of the west coast, North Island of New Zealand, prior to 1840 . Thomas Avery , New Plymouth 1910 (English).
  • 1913 - The lore of the Whare-wānanga : or, Teachings of the Maori College on religion, cosmogony, and history . Polynesian Society , New Plymouth 1913 (English, reissued in 1978 by AMS Press , New York ).
  • 1921 - Hawaiki: the original home of the Maori, with a sketch of Polynesian history . Whitcombe & Tombs , Auckland 1921 (English).

literature

Web links

Commons : Stephenson Percy Smith  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Taylor : Early Travelers in New Zealand . 1959, p.  349 .
  2. ↑ Our picturesque heritage: 100 years . (PDF 401 kB) Department of Conservation , accessed on April 26, 2016 (English).
  3. ^ Coin commemorating Stephenson Percy Smith . National Library of New Zealand , accessed April 26, 2016 .
  4. ^ Smith, S. Percy (Stephenson Percy) 1840-1922 . WorldCat , accessed April 26, 2016 .
personal data
SURNAME Smith, Stephenson Percy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Smith, Percy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION New Zealand surveyor, author and ethnologist
DATE OF BIRTH June 11, 1840
PLACE OF BIRTH Beccles , Suffolk , England
DATE OF DEATH April 19, 1922
Place of death New Plymouth , New Zealand