Henry family

The Henry family migrated to New Zealand from Scotland in the 1870s. In New Zealand they played a major role in forestry, industry, law and philanthropy.

They had originally worked as foresters and timbermillers in their homeland and buttressed by their staunch Presbyterian faith and a regimented ethic for hardwork, they established what was to become one of New Zealand's largest industrial enterprises.

The Encyclopedia of New Zealand recognises the Henry family as being one of the three great Scottish industrialist families that settled in New Zealand in the 19th Century. The others were the Fletchers (founders of Fletcher Construction, see James Fletcher (industrialist) ) and the Todds (founders of Todd Motor Company and Todd Petroleum, see Todd Corporation Ltd).

New Zealand Forest Products (NZFP) was New Zealand's largest industrial company from its creation (following the consolidation of the New Zealand timbermilling sector) in 1936 until the privatisation of state-owned Telecom New Zealand in 1990.

The Henrys on arriving in New Zealand founded a timbermilling operation near Riverton in Southland . By the 1930s they had expanded with several other operations around the country and were responsible for processing felled logs into timber for export.

In 1936 there was substantial consolidation in the New Zealand timber industry when the Henry's milling assets were combined with those of New Zealand Perpetual Forests, a bond-selling forestry company that had gone bankrupt with 150,000 hectares of plantations. Sir David Henry KBE was responsible for negotiations and this saw the creation of New Zealand Forest Products (NZFP).

Another member of the family, Jack Henry, was the Director of the Kinleith Division and the Forests Division. He pioneered new methods in silviculture which saw the company achieve major efficiency gains that turned NZFP into one of the largest forestry companies globally. He was the last Henry to sit on the board of NZFP retiring in 1986 as corporate raiders circled.

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Wikipedia