SMITH, STEPHENSON PERCY (1840-1922) was born in Suffolk and came to New Zealand with his parents in the Pekin at the age of 9. Leaving the ship at Wellington, his father walked and rode to New Plymouth, and in 1850 took the son there. Having completed his education, Smith in 1855 became a government survey cadet under Octavius Carrington. In 1857 he was appointed an assistant surveyor and in 1859 surveyor to the Native Land Purchase department. While still in his teens, he walked with three other young men from New Plymouth to Taupo, Rotomahana and Tarawera, thence down the Rangitaiki and back to Taranaki by the coast. In 1857 he climbed Mount Egmont, and in the early troubles in Taranaki he served in the militia (1857) and was a witness of the fighting at Waitara on 10 Mar 1858. In 1860 his family's home was burned by hostile natives. He was then in Auckland province, and he was sent on a hazardous errand by foot and canoe to summon help from friendly tribes at Kaipara (the Ngati Whatua) for the defence of Auckland. In the early sixties he was cutting the boundaries of native blocks at Coromandel and Tokatea, and he was engaged on military settlement surveys in lower Waikato. In 1863 he married Mary Ann, daughter of W. M. Crompton (q.v.). In 1865 Smith was stationed at New Plymouth, and in 1866-67 at Patea, where the surveyors were armed and took part in the engagements at Pokaikai and Manutahi.

In 1868-69 he carried out a trigonometrical survey of the Chatham Islands, and was there when Te Kooti escaped in the Rifleman to Poverty Bay. From his return to New Zealand Smith was engaged on the major triangulation of Auckland, Hawke's Bay and the north of Wellington province (1870-77). In 1871 he first made use of the steel band and chain measurement. In 1877 he was appointed as the first geodesical surveyor and chief surveyor in Auckland. In 1882 he became assistant surveyor-general, and in 1888 assumed also the position of commissioner of crown lands. In 1886, three days after the Tarawera eruption, Smith commenced a topographical survey of the region, in the course of which he descended the crater to a depth of 500 feet. In 1887 he assisted Captain Fairchild in taking possession of the Kermadec Islands, on which he made an official report. In 1889 he became Surveyor-general and Secretary for Crown Lands, a position which he held until his retirement in 1900.

Smith was much more than a mere surveyor. He was interested in botany, conchology and geology, and had some scientific knowledge of all. Throughout his career he made explorations and wrote reports of considerable value. He first applied Gale's system of co-ordinating traverses in 1862. In 1864 he used solar observations to check bearings. While at the Chathams in 1868 he observed the local effect of the earthquake at Iquique, in Chile. His magnum opus professionally was the triangulation of the greater part of the North Island, of which he supervised the portion from Mangonui to the Manawatu gorge and Ruapehu to Gisborne. After retiring, Smith was sent to Niue (1901) to establish a system of government suitable for the natives and to draft a constitution.

Thereafter he devoted his time to a careful study of Maori and Polynesian history, and founded the Polynesian Society (of which he was president). In 1898 he published the first edition of his Hawaiki; the Whence of the Maori, in 1904 The Wars of the Northern Maori against the Southern Tribes of New Zealand during the Nineteenth Century, and in 1910 he published in book form his contributions to the Maori history of the Taranaki coast. He collaborated with Tregear in his grammar and vocabulary of the Niue language (1907). Smith was awarded the Hector medal of the New Zealand Institute in recognition of his research work. He was a governor of the New Plymouth High School, a member of the Mokau river board, the New Plymouth recreation ground board and the Mt Egmont national park board. He died on 19 Apr 1922.

M. Crompton Smith, A Pioneer Surveyor, 1924; J. Cowan in N.Z. Railways Magazine, 1 Oct 1935; Jourdain; Baker; Cowan ii, p. 516; Polyn. Jour., v 31; N.Z. Surveyor, Dec 1900.

Reference: Volume 2, page 159

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