William H. Purvis

Who was William H. Purvis?

William Herbert Purvis was a plant collector and investor in a sugar plantation on the island of Hawaiʻi during the late nineteenth century.

William Herbert Purvis was born in Sussex, England. He and his father John Purvis came to Hawaii in 1878. A distant cousin, Edith Mary Winifred Purvis, also came to Hawaii and married into the Holdsworth family; their daughter married into the Greenwell family and had daughter Amy B. H. Greenwell.

The Purvis family were early investors in the Pacific Sugar Mill at Kukuihaele near Waipiʻo Valley on the northeast coast "Big Island" of Hawaiʻi. The lands were from the estate of King Lunalilo, consolidated by Purvis and the royal doctor Georges Phillipe Trousseau.

In 1882 he was the first to import macadamia seeds into the Hawaiian Islands after visiting Australia. He planted seed nuts that year at Kapulena, Hawaii at 20°6′4″N 155°31′40″W / 20.10111°N 155.52778°W, just southeast of the Pacific Mill. For many years, the trees were grown just as ornamental plants. Macadamias have since become an important tree crop in Hawaii. Total area in macadamia production is 20,200 acres and Hawaii’s macadamia industry is valued at $175 million annually.