Henry Georges was born at 16, Rue de Treuils, Bordeaux, the son of Justin Jadé Fourcade and Marie Prat.

The next year he attended technikon and obtained good results in English, French, German, arithmetic, chemistry and commerce.

With de Vasselot, Fourcade studied forest science and management, acquiring knowledge about the climate, soils and indigenous trees.

He performed this job well, training the existing marksmen to comply with new regulations that had come into force and that were designed to make the forest sustainable.

In the intervening period, ruination of forest land was tolerated by the Civil Commissioner, a Maximillian Jackson, who many a time found himself at loggerheads with Fourcade.

In what was to become a pattern in later life, Fourcade, who did not shy away from confrontation, spoke his mind clearly and once delivered a curt reply so stinging to the Commissioner that it led to accusations of 'insolence and insubordinate conduct'.

The last round of the clash with the Commissioner was concluded as follows: "I am sure that Mr Jackson has tact enough if he chooses to enable me to avoid further friction" (Storrar 1990a, p. 28).

Mr Jackson probably did exercise a lot of tact, as a few years later he invited Fourcade to join him for lunch with the Governor, Alfred Milner and the Mayor of Knysna, an exclusive event for just four people.

De Vasselot had wanted to go himself, with Fourcade as his First Assistant, but that plan was scuppered when the Natal Government didn't provide enough funds.

He was welcomed by the Natal Government, given transport and made a member of several clubs, introduced to all the magistrates of the districts included in his brief and had the railway workshops at his disposal.

The work included inspecting each forest's climate, average altitude, area and extent, soils, rock, tree species and surface growth.

He had to assess the extent of damage by exploitation, fire or sapling depletion (by local hut builders or herders with grazing animals).

This he passed, but the arrangement fell through when a junior colleague was appointed instead and Fourcade returned to Knysna, still not having completed all the requirements of the Land Surveyor's qualification.

In the same year, he also presented a modest first paper to the South African Philosophical Society, which had to do with repetitive angle measurements in triangulation work.

The next 20 years would see him collaborate with a number of herbaria, build up close professional relationships with the leading botanists of the time and become a major collector of the Southern Cape floristic region.