Major Bob - The Life and Times of Robert Adams Wilson of Rangitikei

Published by River Press, Dunedin, 2010, 267 pages. Fade to spine, otherwise good secondhand condition. Signed by Hilary Haylock.

Major Robert Adams Wilson DSO, the second son of a Rangitikei sheep farmer, was brought up in a privileged and cultured household. Inspired by his Scottish father, a Member of Parliament, and his Australian mother who was a noted writer, Bob had an enquiring and innovative mind, a firm belief in science and a love for literature and the arts. He was a keen polo player and a forward-thinking businessman whose interests in sawmilling culminated in the chairmanship of two of the North Island's most important timber companies. He successfully planted and farmed a large area of Himitangi coastal sand country, and he established the highly successful Mahoe Friesian Stud, but his greatest love was for the rugged and isolated places of New Zealand. For nearly four decades he went deerstalking in South Westland and Otago, and after serving in the British Army in World War One he encouraged English sportsmen to do the same. He was an authority on native birds, joining ornithologists Edgar Stead and Geoffrey Buddle on numerous research expeditions to New Zealand's most inhospitable offshore islands. He wrote for a variety of newspapers and journals, and he bred lilies and rhododendrons. A high mountain pass, an island bay, several native plants and a rare southern fernbird were named after him, yet he had no public profile and was little known outside his own circles. This book tells the story of a twentieth-century gentleman who lived on his own terms in the Rangitikei.