William Mein Smith

Born in 1798 in Cape Town, South Africa, he was raised in Devon and the Scottish Borders, serving in the Royal Artillery from 1814 in Ireland and then Canada.

They married at Kingston, Ontario in 1828 and his next posting was to Gibraltar, including being part of a diplomatic visit to Marrakech in 1829–30, followed by appointment to the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich where he taught as Master of Line Drawing, before being approached to assist Wakefield's New Zealand Company in 1839.

[3] He was instrumental in the Wellington colony's early administration, the setting out of the town (including reservation of one tenth for Māori owners), and country acres, and later oversaw work in the Manawatū and Wanganui.

His other contributions included helping to form the first library, designing the first light at the entrance to the harbour, exploring the route to Porirua and the Kāpiti Coast, and founding the Horticultural Society.

Though getting on the wrong side of Colonel Wakefield, the Company's Principal Agent, and being dismissed as Surveyor General from early 1842, when he was replaced without warning by Samuel Charles Brees, he was commissioned to sail down the East Coast of the South Island in September 1842 was directed to map the harbours on the South Island's east coast to help locate another site for settlement by the New Zealand Company.