Walter Henry Guillebaud, CBE (2 July 1890 – 1 November 1973) was a British civil servant and forester.
Born on 2 July 1890,[1] Guillebaud was the son of the Rev. Erneste Guillebaud (1856–1907), rector of Yatesbury, and Mabel Louise Marshall (1850–1912), a sister of the economist Alfred Marshall. Walter was one of four sons; the elder, Harold, became a missionary, Walter's twin Claude William became a noted economist, and the younger brother Cyril died in 1915.[2] Walter studied at Victoria College, Manchester, and then St John's College, Cambridge.[1]
He was appointed an assistant inspector in the Forestry Branch of the Board of Agriculture in 1914.[1] When the Forestry Commission was established in 1919,[3] he became a research officer and six years later a divisional officer.[1] He was appointed Chief Research Officer in 1928[1] and Director of Research and Education in 1945, serving until 1948. He was then Deputy Director-General of the Forestry Commission between 1948 and 1953.[4]
By the late 1940s, Guillebaud had been "the leading figure in forest research since the early twenties".[5] He served as president of the Institute of Foresters of Great Britain from 1945 to 1947[6] and published ten articles in its journal, Forestry.[7] While possessing a wide range of knowledge about forestry, the forester J. A. B. Macdonald recalled him as "cadaverous in appearance [but] nevertheless gentle, retiring and timid by nature... [h]e was definitely a scholar by preference, and I doubt if there was every much that was really original either about his work or his thoughts".[8] Nevertheless, the Commission paid tribute to him when he died, saying that "his valuable work ... plac[ed] [the Commission's] research efforts on a firm footing".[3] He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his service in the 1951 New Year Honours.[9] He died on 1 November 1973.[4]
References edit
- ^ a b c d e "Guillebaud, Walter Henry", Who Was Who (online ed., Oxford University Press, 2021). Retrieved 4 February 2022.
- ^ John K. Whitaker (ed.), The Correspondence of Alfred Marshall, Economist, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 351.
- ^ a b Fifty-Fourth Annual Report and Accounts of the Forestry Commission for the Year Ended 31st March 1974 (London: HMSO, 1974), p. 19.
- ^ a b "Mr Walter Henry Guillebaud", The Times (London), 3 November 1973, p. 16. Gale CS271546723.
- ^ R. F. Wood, Fifty Years of Forestry Research: A Review of Work Conducted and Supported by the Forestry Commission, 1920–1970 (London: HMSO, 1974), p. 39.
- ^ "Past Presidents", Forestry: The Journal of the Institute of Foresters of Great Britain, vol. 46 (1973).
- ^ J. A. B. Macdonald, "The First Half-Century of the Institute of Foresters and Some of the Personalities Who Contributed to Its Establishment", Forestry: An International Journal of Forest Research, vol. 48, no. 1 (1975), p. 13.
- ^ Macdonald (1975), p. 21.
- ^ The London Gazette, 29 December 1950 (supplement, issue 39104), p. 11.