The Making of the Man of the Trees: A biographical interrogation of the early life of Richard St. Barbe Baker (1889-1982)

In 1920, Richard St. Barbe Baker had completed his diploma in Forestry at Cambridge University and embarked on a new career which was to take him first to East Africa as Assistant Conservator of Forests, and later around the world as the Man of the Trees. This transformation was made possible by the innovative work he undertook in the British colony instigating community tree-planting efforts, as well as his ability to shape his life’s experience to demonstrate that such a transformation had been inevitable: he had been brought up around trees, had an early spiritual revelation which left him in love with nature, and had dedicated his life to the service of both humanity and the environment.

This was the message that he repeated in many of his published works which, over the years, gained authority, yet have never been subject to scrutiny. As a result, his legacy is easily overlooked and misunderstood. His long life meant that his connection to events and figures in history defies easy categorisation, and the first thirty years alone encompassed a Victorian evangelical childhood, emigration to Canada in his late teens, work in the home missions of the East End, service in the Army during the First World War, participation in post-war reconstruction, and joining the ranks of foresters who were trained in the aftermath of the conflict to work in Britain and overseas, vanguards of a world-changing discipline.

The assumption up until now has been that Baker’s autobiographies represent an accurate and truthful account of his life. However, this study has sought to demonstrate that Baker’s account of the first thirty years of his life is much more complex and ambiguous, with his published accounts made of both fiction and fact. In doing so, the Man of the Trees has been reconstructed from the archives that he left behind him and takes a different form: more vulnerable, more enterprising, and more elusive than his accessible public persona might suggest. As a result, Baker’s ability to reconcile practical faith and practical silviculture are more clearly situated within the canon of ecological thinkers, and his place within the pantheon of environmental history is reaffirmed.