William Henry Smyth | |
|---|---|
 Smyth, as depicted in hisThe Sailor's Word-Book | |
| Born | (1788-01-21)21 January 1788 Westminster, London |
| Died | 8 September 1865(1865-09-08) (aged 77) |
| Buried | Stone, Buckinghamshire |
| Allegiance | United Kingdom |
| Branch | Royal Navy |
| Years of service | 1804–1846 |
| Rank | Admiral |
| Commands |
|
| Battles / wars | |
| Awards | Order of Saint Ferdinand and of Merit |
| Spouse | Eliza Anne "Annarella" Warington |
| Other work | Astronomer and numismatist |
AdmiralWilliam Henry SmythFRS FSA FRAS FRGS (21 January 1788 – 8 September 1865) was an EnglishRoyal Navy officer,hydrographer,astronomer andnumismatist. He is noted for his involvement in the early history of a number of learned societies, for his hydrographic charts, for his astronomical work, and for a wide range of publications and translations.
William Henry Smyth was the only son of Joseph Smyth (died 1788) and Georgiana Caroline Pitt Pilkington (died 1838), the daughter ofJohn Carteret Pilkington and the granddaughter ofLaetitia Pilkington and her husbandMatthew Pilkington. His father, Joseph Smyth, anAmericanLoyalist fromNew Jersey who served as a lieutenant in theKing's Royal Regiment of New York during theRevolutionary War, was the sixth son of Benjamin Smyth (died 1769),[1] a landowner in what is nowBlairstown,[2] and his first wife Catherina Schoonhoven (died 1750).
Never having known his father, the Admiral grew up with a half-brotherAugustus Earle and a half-sisterPhoebe Earle.
To conceal the disreputability of his parents and his probable illegitimacy, his descendants, in particular his daughter Henrietta Grace Smyth, invented an imaginary ancestry.[3] Their claims, which were reproduced in works like Burke's Peerage,[4] included alleged descent from the childlessCaptain John Smith, whose coat of arms they adopted, and a fictitious relationship withLord Nelson.[3] Genealogical research they had commissioned in England and the USA, suggesting that his father Joseph Smyth was in fact a forger, a perjurer and a bigamist, was suppressed.[3]
In 1802, aged 14, Smyth ran away from his poverty-stricken home to be a cabin boy aboard a merchant ship, which was subsequently commandeered by the Royal Navy; he entered as an ordinary seaman.[3] In 1804 he was in the East India Company's shipMarquis Cornwallis, which the government chartered for an expedition against the Seychelles. In the following March, asCornwallis the vessel was bought by theRoyal Navy to be a 50-gun ship under the command of Captain Charles James Johnston, with whom Smyth remained, seeing much active service in Indian, Chinese, Australian and Pacific waters. In February 1808 he followed Johnston toPowerful, which, on returning to England, was part of the force in theexpedition to the Scheldt, and was paid off in October 1809. He afterwards served in the 74-gunMilford on the coast of France and Spain, and was lent from her to command the Spanish gunboatMors aut Gloria at thedefence of Cadiz from September 1810 to April 1811. In July 1811 he joinedRodney offToulon, and through 1812 served on the coast of Spain.[5]
On 25 March 1813 (aged 25) he was promoted to lieutenant and appointed to the Sicilian flotilla, in which he combined service against the French from Naples with a good deal of unofficial hydrographic surveying and antiquarian research. For his services in defending Sicily, he was subsequently awarded theOrder of Saint Ferdinand and of Merit by KingFerdinand I of the Two Sicilies, and received permission from the Prince Regent to wear it.[6]
On 18 September 1815 (aged 27) he was promoted toCommander and in command of the brigScylla continued surveying the coast of Sicily, the adjacent coasts of Italy, and the opposite shores of Africa. In 1817 his survey work was put on a more formal footing by his appointment toAid. In 1821 this vessel was renamedAdventure and later accompaniedBeagle on thefirst voyage of theBeagle, in which Smyth's half-brotherAugustus Earle was the official artist. InAid, Smyth carried on thehydrographic survey of the Italian, Sicilian, Greek, and African coasts, and constructed a very large number of charts, used by the Royal Navy among others until the mid-20th century. As a result, he became known as "Mediterranean Smyth". His hydrographic operations in the Adriatic, in collaboration with the Austrian and Neapolitan authorities, resulted in theCarta di Cabottaggio del Mare Adriatico, published in 1822–24.[7]
While inSicily in 1817, he met theItalianastronomerGiuseppe Piazzi inPalermo and visited hisobservatory; this sparked his interest inastronomy and he gave his second son (who became a noted astronomer) the namePiazzi. Smyth published some of his work in hisMemoir description of the Resources, Inhabitants, and Hydrography of Sicily and its Islands (London, 1824),[8] which was followed in 1828 by aSketch of Sardinia. Subsequently, in 1854, he was awarded theRoyal Geographical Society'sFounder's Medal in recognition of his survey work in the Mediterranean.[9]
On 7 February 1824, aged 36, he was promoted toPost-Captain, and in November he paid off theAdventure. He remained on the Active List on full pay, ready for active service, but this actually was the end of his service at sea, and he turned to a life of literary and scientific pursuits.[5] In 1846 aged 58, he retired from the Navy onhalf-pay,[10][11] being advanced on the retired list to Rear-Admiral on 28 May 1853,[12][13] then to Vice-Admiral on 17 May 1858,[14] and finally to Admiral on 14 November 1863, aged 75.[15]
Returning to England and settling atBedford, in 1825 he fitted out a private observatory equipped with a 5.9-inchrefractor telescope[16] at his home at 6 The Crescent.[17][18]He used this instrument to observe a variety ofdeep sky objects over the course of the 1830s, includingdouble stars,star clusters andnebulae. He published his observations in 1844 in theCycle of Celestial Objects, which earned him theGold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1845 and also the presidency of the society. The first volume of this work was on general astronomy, but the second volume became known as theBedford Catalogue[19] and contained his observations of 1,604 double stars and nebulae. It served as a standard reference work for many years afterward; no astronomer had previously made as extensive a catalogue of dim objects such as this. It was reprinted in 1986 with a foreword stating:[20]
What makes it so special is that it is the first true celestial Baedeker and not just another "cold" catalogue of mere numbers and data. Like the original Baedeker travel guidebooks of the last century, this work is full of colorful commentary on the highlights of the heavenly scene and heavily influenced several subsequent works of its type, even to the present day. ...It is in the descriptive material that Smyth is a delight. He not only describes what the user of a small telescope will see, but also includes much fascinating astronomical, mythological, and historical lore. Many of these descriptions are especially valuable for the novice and user of small telescopes of a size similar to Smyth's.
Having completed his observations, he moved toCardiff in 1839 to supervise the construction of theBute Dock which he had designed.[21] His observatory was dismantled and the telescope was sold to DrJohn Lee, who re-erected it in a new observatory of Smyth's design atHartwell House near the village ofStone inBuckinghamshire. Smyth moved to Stone in 1842 and, still having access to the telescope, performed a large number of additional astronomical observations from 1839 to 1859. The telescope is now in theScience Museum, London.[22][23][18]
He also produced observations in a publication on star colours entitled "Sidereal Chromatics" in 1864,[24] which attempted to explain their nature, the effects of the Earth's atmosphere, and the possibility of change in colour due toDoppler Shift. While his premise proved ultimately wrong, he discussed and created a summary on observing star colours of many double stars under his so-called Hartwell Experiment.[25] Some of his ideas continued to be promoted into the early 20th century, but were mostly then rejected by the overwhelming evidence fromastronomical spectroscopy.[25]
He was anumismatist of some standing, being a founding member of theRoyal Numismatic Society in 1836 and one of the first members of its council. He maintained a lifelong interest in coins and was the author of a number of treatises on the subject.[26][27]
In 1821 he became a fellow of theSociety of Antiquaries of London and of theRoyal Astronomical Society (RAS). On 15 June 1826 he was electedFellow of the Royal Society, and in 1830 was one of the founders of theRoyal Geographical Society (RGS).[28] In 1845–6 he was president of the RAS and in 1849–50, of the RGS. He was vice-president and foreign secretary of theRoyal Society; vice-president and director of the Society of Antiquaries; and an honorary orcorresponding member of at least three-fourths of the literary and scientific societies in Europe.[5] as well as those in the United States. Among these were theRoyal Irish Academy, theInstitut de France, theAccademia Pontaniana, the National Institute of Washington, and theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences (1847),[29] and the Naval Lyceum of New York. He also served on the Board of Visitors to theGreenwich Observatory.[30] He contributed numerous papers to thePhilosophical Transactions and theProceedings of the RAS and RGS, and from 1829 to 1849 to theUnited Service Journal.
He was the author of many works, the best known of which are:
He also translated and editedFrançois Arago's treatises onPopular Astronomy and onComets.[32][5]
As well as his home at St John's Lodge in Stone, he kept a house at 3Cheyne Walk inChelsea, London, where he stayed while attending the various learned societies and where he entertained his like-minded friends.
In early September 1865, he suffered aheart attack at St John's Lodge and at first seemed to recover. On the evening of 8 September he showed the planetJupiter to his young grandson, Arthur Smyth Flower, through a telescope. He died a few hours later, in the early morning of 9 September, at the age of 78, and was buried in the graveyard of St John the Baptist church atStone, Buckinghamshire.
His obituary in theMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society noted:[33]
As President of the Astronomical Club, he was always genial & courteous, ever keeping things in happy order, and by his ready wit and flow of humour compelling the maintenance of good fellowship. He used to fill his pockets with new half-pennies to distribute to any children he met in his daily walks. Whatever he did, he did it with his might.
Alunar mare was namedMare Smythii in his honour, as wasSmyth Channel in the fiords ofChile andCape Smyth in theAntarctic.[citation needed]
InMessina on 7 October 1815, when both were aged 27, he married Eliza Anne ("Annarella"), only child of Thomas Warington, the British consul in Naples, and his first wife Anne, widow of Lewis Bradshaw Peirson and daughter of William Robinson. They had eleven children, five of whom either achieved prominence or married notable spouses:
An 1818 watercolour portrait byJames Green exists,[34][35][36] but an 1861 portrait in oils by E. E. Eddis of him and his wife cataloguing theDuke of Northumberland's numismatic collection was destroyed during theLondon blitz.[37]
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: "Smyth, William Henry".Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
O'Byrne, William Richard (1849)."Smyth, William Henry" .A Naval Biographical Dictionary .John Murray – viaWikisource.
