ADAMS, THOMAS WILLIAM (1842-1919) was born at Graveley, Huntingdonshire, and educated at a private school in Cambridge and afterwards at the British and Foreign Normal School, Borough Road, London. Coming to Canterbury in 1862, he took up land at Greendale in 1865 which he farmed successfully for many years. At an early date he planted shelter belts of trees, devoting much study to ascertain the best varieties for the conditions. In this way he created fine mixed plantations and a collection of exotic trees and shrubs which was then the largest in New Zealand. His researches with regard to the Monterey pine (pinus radiata) constituted an important advance in New Zealand forestry, establishing this as a valuable timber tree for New Zealand. In 1897 he became a member of the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury. Many of his papers on tree culture appeared in the Transactions of the New Zealand Institute, the journal of the Canterbury A. and P. Association, and the report of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science (1904). In recognition of his services he was elected an honorary member of the Royal British Arboricultural Society and a life member of the New Zealand Forestry League. Adams was a member of the Courtenay road board (1875), of the Greendale school committee for 35 years (and its first chairman), and the North Canterbury education board from 1892 (chairman 1897-1905). He was for twenty years from 1896 a governor of Canterbury College, to which he left 100 acres of planted land at Greendale, his entire collection of trees and shrubs and the sum of £2,000 as the nucleus of a forestry school. He was a member of the Royal Commission on Forestry (1913). He was a Baptist and a temperance advocate. Adams died on 1 Jun 1919. He married Miss Pannett.

Acland; Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. 51 (p); Who's Who N.Z., 1908; The Press, 2 Jun 1919.

Reference: Volume 1, page 19

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