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Map of the North Island, showing districts around Feilding as Birmingham, Carnarvon. Stephenson Percy Smith was the Surveyor General at this time the map was produced. He was born in England on 11th June 1840 and arrived in Wellington, New Zealand with his parents on 26th December 1849 on the New Zealand Company Ship Pekin. Stephenson went to school at New Plymouth and then Omata. In February 1855 Smith joined the provinical survey department as the first cadet under Octavius Carrington, helping to subdivide the land around the settlement of New Plymouth. In 1862 he moved to Auckland where he married Mary Anne Crompton and remained there until 1865, when he was sent to New Plymouth as district surveyor. He was involved in the surveys of Waiuku in 1864, Taranaki in 1865-66 and Pitt Island in 1868.On returning to the North Island, he was responsible for the major triangulations of Auckland and Hawke's Bay from 1870-1876. This included the survey of Auckland and Thames (1871-72), the Taupo triangulation (1872-73), and the Maketu and Waikato surveys in 1873 and 1874. In 1877 he was appointed the first geodesical surveyor and chief surveyor of the provincial district of Auckland in the department of the surveyor general. In 1881 he bacame assistant surveyor general and in 1888 was made commissioner of Crown Lands for the Auckland District. In January 1889 he became surveyor general and secretary for lands and mines. He held these positions until his retirement on 30th October 1900. Stephenson Percy Smith died on 19th April 1922 at his home, Matai-moana, in New Plymouth. Giselle M. Byrnes. "Smith, Stephenson Percy', Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, first published in 1993. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/2s33/smith-stephenson-percy (accessed 12 September 2018) |Early Maps of New Zealand