William Henry Scherffius, an American tobacco expert, was the son of William Scherffius and his wife Lenora Elizabeth, born Howard. He qualified as Master of Science (MS). During 1905 to 1909 he wrote three important agricultural reports that were published as Bulletins of the Kentucky Agricultural Experiment Station: Corn. 1. A method of selecting seed corn. 2. A chemical study of the composition of a number of varieties of Kentucky corn (Lexington, 1905, No. 122, 35 pp); Tobacco. 1. Selection of seed plants and care of seed. 2. Improved methods of handling the crop. 3. Elimination of undesirable varieties (1907, No. 129, 15 pp); and Tobacco. 1. Cultivation. 2. Curing. 3. Marketing (1909, No. 139, 36 pp). With H. Woosley and C.A. Mahan he also wrote The cultivation of tobacco in Kentucky and Tennessee (Washington, 1909, 31 pp).
In April 1909 Scherffius was appointed chief of the Tobacco Division of the Department of Agriculture of the Transvaal Colony. He wrote an article on "Tobacco growing in the Barberton District" for the Transvaal Agricultural Journal (Vol. 8, 1909-1910), and a two-part article on "Cotton" (Ibid, 1909-1910, Vol. 8 and 9). After the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910 he became chief of the Tobacco and Cotton Division of the Union's Department of Agriculture on 1 January 1912. Around that time he wrote two articles for the Agricultural Journal of the Union of South Africa, on "Sterilizing tobacco seed beds" (in two parts, 1911, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2) and "Cotton" (1912, Vol. 3). The government of Swaziland requested his assistance as a cotton expert in 1911. In 1916 he presented a paper on "Cotton" before the South African Association for the Advancement of Science (Report, 1916, pp. 187-190). Some years later he and J. du P. Oosthuizen wrote a book on Cotton in South Africa (Johannesburg, 1924, 207 pp). By 1926 Scherffius was manager of the Tobacco Corporation at Rustenburg.
Scherffius was married to Lucy Elizabeth Sparks, with whom he had a son.
