威廉·亨利·史密斯1788—1865

Admiral William Henry Smyth (21 January 1788 – 8 September 1865) was an English Royal Navy officer, hydrographer, astronomer and numismatist. 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.

Origins

William Henry Smyth was the only son of Joseph Smyth (died 1788) and Georgiana Caroline Pitt Pilkington (died 1838), the daughter of John Carteret Pilkington and the granddaughter of Laetitia Pilkington and her husband Matthew Pilkington.

Royal Navy

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. In 1804 he was in the East India Company's ship Marquis Cornwallis, which the government chartered for an expedition against the Seychelles.

Astronomy

Returning to England and settling at Bedford, in 1825 he fitted out a private observatory equipped with a 5.9-inch refractor telescope at his home at 6 The Crescent.

He used this instrument to observe a variety of deep sky objects over the course of the 1830s, including double stars, star clusters and nebulae. He published his observations in 1844 in the Cycle of Celestial Objects, which earned him the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1845 and also the presidency of the society.

Numismatics

He was a numismatist of some standing, being a founding member of the Royal 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.

Involvement with learned institutions

In 1821 he became a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS). On 15 June 1826 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1830 was one of the founders of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS). In 1845–6 he was president of the RAS and in 1849–50, of the RGS.

Later literary work

He was the author of many works, the best known of which are:

A Cycle of Celestial Objects for the use of Naval, Military, and Private Astronomers for which he was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society. Published as two volumes in 1844, volume I: Prolegomena; Volume II: The Bedford Catalogue., it is still in print;

The Mediterranean: a Memoir Physical, Historical, and Nautical (1854). His charts of the Mediterranean, made in the 1820s, were still in use by the Royal Navy until the 1960s;

Last years

As well as his home at St John's Lodge in Stone, he kept a house at 3 Cheyne Walk in Chelsea, London, where he stayed while attending the various learned societies and where he entertained his like-minded friends. One of these was the Rev, Prof. Baden Powell (mathematician), then a widower, who met at this house Smyth's daughter Henrietta Grace, and married her.Tim Jeal

In early September 1865, he suffered a heart attack at St John's Lodge and at first seemed to recover.

Family

In Messina 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:

Warington Wilkinson Smyth (1817–1890)

Charles Piazzi Smyth (1819–1900)

Portraits

An 1818 watercolour portrait by James Green exists, but an 1861 portrait in oils by E. E. Eddis of him and his wife cataloguing the Duke of Northumberland's numismatic collection was destroyed during the London blitz.