Sir John Smith-Dodsworth, Bt - Telegraph As he became an authority on the subject, the Botanical Society of New Zealand consulted him on many of the country's rarer specimens, and in 1989 he published, with Patrick Brownsey, New Zealand Ferns and Allied Plants; this was followed, in 1991, by New Zealand Native Shrubs and Climbers, under his sole authorship. More recently Smith-Dodsworth had worked with New Zealand's Department of Conservation, providing photographs of plant species, especially those threatened with extinction - many of his images were published in Threatened Plants of New Zealand, by Peter de Lange and others, published in 2010. Since 2003 Smith-Dodsworth had provided more than 3,500 images (16 per cent of the total) for the website of the New Zealand Plant Conservation Network, which in 2011 presented him with a lifetime achievement award for his services to conservation. Smith-Dodsworth also helped to establish the narrow gauge railway at the Driving Creek Railway and Potteries, near Coromandel, as well as the nature reserve there; in November 2011 a fernery was planted at the reserve and named in his honour. Among his other interests was wood carving. He became highly accomplished at re-creating traditional Maori ornaments, having been taught by a Maori craftsman at a time when the art was dying out. John Smith-Dodsworth married first, in 1961 (dissolved 1971), Margaret Jones, with whom he had a son and a daughter. He married secondly, in 1972, Rita Grey, with whom he had a son. She died in 1990, and he married thirdly, in 1991 (dissolved 2004), Lolita Pulante, with whom he had a son and a daughter. He is survived by his fourth wife, Nerrisa (née Feratero), whom he married in 2006, and by his five children. His eldest son, David John Smith-Dodsworth, who was born in 1963 and succeeds in the baronetcy, lives at Thornton Watlass, which has been in the family since the early 15th century, although the present house is principally Georgian. The Hall has been used as a location in television series such as All Creatures Great and Small and Heartbeat, in which it featured as the house of Lord Ashfordly and as Webster's Hotel. Sir John Smith-Dodsworth, 8th Bt, born March 4 1935, died September 21 2012