| Biographical Display |
HD Skinner. 1946. Obituary. JPS 55 (4):280.
george Shepherd, who died on June 3, 1946, was born at Waitohi, South Canterbury, in 1872. At the age of 12 he went to work on a farm and at fifteen was apprenticed to a blacksmith. In 1893 he came to Wanganui, serving there for 25 years with David Murray & Co., engineers and iron founders, and for 10 years with the Wanganui Harbour Board. In all this period he had been a keen student of natural history and had become a first class taxidermist. In 1929 he was appointed curatpr of the Alexander Museum, Wanganui, and in the 17 years which followed he was responsible for the fine series of mounted game, fish, cetacea, and moa skeletons which are a feature of that museum. In 1933 at Ohawe Beach, near Hawera, he recovered the skeleton of a new species of whale named after him Tasmacetus shepherdi. Shepherd spent much time in repairing and reconditioning Maori wood carvings in the Alexander museum, but his principal excursion into ethnology took the form of model-making, and in this field he far surpassed all previous workers. The models represented Maori tree-felling, bird-snaring, rat-catching, and fishing, were circulated among other NZ museums, and earned unstinted praise from every ethnologist who studied them. All who met him at his work respected and admired him, and in those who knew him he inspired deep affection.
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