William Henry Smyth
Encyclopedia
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
sailor
Sailor
A sailor, mariner, or seaman is a person who navigates water-borne vessels or assists in their operation, maintenance, or service. The term can apply to professional mariners, military personnel, and recreational sailors as well as a plethora of other uses...
, hydrographer, astronomer
Astronomer
An astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...
and numismatist.
Private Life
He was born at 42 Great Peter Street, WestminsterWestminster
Westminster is an area of central London, within the City of Westminster, England. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, southwest of the City of London and southwest of Charing Cross...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. He was the only son of Joseph Brewer Palmer Smyth and Georgina Caroline Pitt Pilkington, granddaughter of the Irish writer Laetitia Pilkington
Laetitia Pilkington
Laetitia Pilkington was a celebrated Anglo-Irish poet and important source of information on the early 18th century. Her Memoirs are the source of much of what is known of the personalities and habits of Jonathan Swift and others.Laetitia was born of two distinguished families...
who was a protégée of Jonathan Swift. His father was a colonial American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
who lived in East Jersey. He was an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
loyalist, however, and after the American Revolution
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
emigrated to England where his son was born shortly before Joseph died. His half brother was the famous painter & traveller Augustus Earle
Augustus Earle
Augustus Earle was a London-born travel artist. Unlike earlier artists who worked outside Europe and were employed on voyages of exploration or worked abroad for wealthy, often aristocratic patrons, Earle was able to operate quite independently - able to combine his lust for travel with an...
. Early in his navel career, Smyth sought and was given permission by Lord Exmouth to allow his half brother Augustus passage through the Mediterranean aboard the RN naval gunship that he commanded & which was part of Admiral Exmouth Royal Navy fleet.
"By the maternal side he was great grandson of Matthew Pilkington" from 'Worthyies of Bucks & men of note' Robt Gibbs 1886 p 363.
He married Eliza Anne "Annarella" Warington
Eliza Anne "Annarella" Warington
Eliza Anne Warington was born in Naples, Italy, the daughter of Thomas Warington, the British Consul. She was known as "Annarella" for most of her life; that is a Neapolitan diminutive of Anne that you may hear being used in the region today...
in Messina on 7 October 1815, when they were 27; she was ten weeks the younger; a portrait of them can be seen at http://www.pinetreeweb.com/bp-admiral.htm; this was painted while they were cataloguing the Duke of Northumberland's collection, see bibliography below. The portrait was destroyed during the Blitz
Blitz
-Armed conflict:*The Blitz, the German aerial attacks on Britain in WWII. The name Blitz was subsequently applied to many individual bombing campaigns or attacks.*Blitzkrieg, the "lightning war", a strategy of World War 2 Germany-People:...
. Others are at
http://christiesinternational.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?from=salesummary&intObjectID=5324871&sid=fe2bc637-0df9-4c7e-aebd-92a8b05199f5
http://www.npgprints.com/image.php?imgref=5876
Smyth suffered a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
at his home near Aylesbury in early September, 1865, and at first seemed to recover. On 8 September he showed the planet Jupiter
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn,...
to his young grandson, Arthur Smyth Flower, through a telescope. A few hours later in the early morning of 9 September, at age 78, he died. He was buried in the churchyard at Stone
Stone, Buckinghamshire
Stone is a village in Buckinghamshire, England. It is located southwest of the town of Aylesbury, on the A418 road that links Aylesbury to Thame...
near Aylesbury
Aylesbury
Aylesbury is the county town of Buckinghamshire in South East England. However the town also falls into a geographical region known as the South Midlands an area that ecompasses the north of the South East, and the southern extremities of the East Midlands...
.
Career
In 1802, at the age of 14, young William Henry ran away to sea from life in a succession of London boarding houses, joining a merchant vessel which later was taken over by the Royal Navy.During the Napoleonic wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
he served in the Mediterranean, earning the nickname "Mediterranean Smyth" for his survey work - his charts of the Mediterranean were still in use in 1961.
During a hydrographic survey
Hydrographic survey
Hydrographic survey is the science of measurement and description of features which affect maritime navigation, marine construction, dredging, offshore oil exploration/drilling and related disciplines. Strong emphasis is placed on soundings, shorelines, tides, currents, sea floor and submerged...
in 1817 he met the Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
astronomer
Astronomer
An astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...
Giuseppe Piazzi
Giuseppe Piazzi
Giuseppe Piazzi was an Italian Catholic priest of the Theatine order, mathematician, and astronomer. He was born in Ponte in Valtellina, and died in Naples. He established an observatory at Palermo, now the Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo – Giuseppe S...
in Palermo, Sicily
Palermo
Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...
, and visited his observatory
Observatory
An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geology, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed...
; this sparked his interest in astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
.
Lt. 25.3.13;
Cr 18.9.15;
Kt (Two Sicilies) 16.3.16 (London Gazette);
Ret CA 31.10.46;
Ret RA 28.5.53;
Ret VA 13.2.58;
Ret A 14.11.63
Smyth and Annarella had eleven children between 1816 and 1835. Their three sons were Charles Piazzi Smyth
Charles Piazzi Smyth
Charles Piazzi Smyth , was Astronomer Royal for Scotland from 1846 to 1888, well-known for many innovations in astronomy and his pyramidological and metrological studies of the Great Pyramid of Giza....
, Sir Warington Wilkinson Smyth
Warington Wilkinson Smyth
Sir Warington Wilkinson Smyth was a British geologist.-Biography:Smyth was born at Naples, the son of Admiral W. H. Smyth and his wife Annarella Warington. His father was engaged in the Admiralty Survey of the Mediterranean at the time of his birth. Smyth was educated at Westminster and...
and General Sir Henry Augustus Smyth
Henry Augustus Smyth
Sir Henry Augustus Smyth , FSA, FRGS, Governor of Malta, general and colonel commandant Royal Artillery, born at St James's Street, London, on 25 November 1825, was third son in the family of three sons and six daughters of Admiral William Henry Smyth by his wife Annarella, only daughter of Thomas...
. Of their eight daughters, two died young, a third "married and died" aged 20, another also died at 20, unmarried, and another unmarried at 25, of diphtheria. Their other three daughters were Henrietta Grace, who married Rev. Professor Baden Powell
Baden Powell (mathematician)
Baden Powell, MA, FRS, FRGS was an English mathematician and Church of England priest. He was also prominent as a liberal theologian who put forward advanced ideas about evolution. He held the Savilian Chair of Geometry at the University of Oxford from 1827 to 1860...
and was mother of nine, including Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell
Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell
Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, Bt, OM, GCMG, GCVO, KCB , also known as B-P or Lord Baden-Powell, was a lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, and founder of the Scout Movement....
(often referred to as "B-P"); while Georgiana Rosetta married Sir William Henry Flower
William Henry Flower
Sir William Henry Flower KCB FRCS FRS was an English comparative anatomist and surgeon. Flower became a leading authority on mammals, and especially on the primate brain...
and had seven children; and Ellen Philedelphia, who married Capt. Henry Toynbee and sailed out to Australia as a young bride in 1855. She died childless in 1881 aged 52 after a long illness.
His daughter Georgiana Rosetta, later in life, modelled herself on Queen Victoria. On one occasion she was entertaining some acquaintances to tea, and in discussion pointed to the portrait referred to above, saying, "He was a numismatist, you know." whereupon one of the visitors replied sympathetically, "Oh, I'm so sorry!", as if it were a disease (perhaps it is!).
In 1825, having achieved the rank of Admiral, Smyth effectively retired from the Navy (Admirals never retired in those days, remaining on the Active List until death) and established a private observatory in Bedford, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, equipped with a 5.9-inch refractor telescope
Telescope
A telescope is an instrument that aids in the observation of remote objects by collecting electromagnetic radiation . The first known practical telescopes were invented in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 1600s , using glass lenses...
. He used this instrument to observe a variety of deep sky objects over the course of the 1830s, including double star
Double star
In observational astronomy, a double star is a pair of stars that appear close to each other in the sky as seen from Earth when viewed through an optical telescope. This can happen either because the pair forms a binary star, i.e...
s, star cluster
Star cluster
Star clusters or star clouds are groups of stars. Two types of star clusters can be distinguished: globular clusters are tight groups of hundreds of thousands of very old stars which are gravitationally bound, while open clusters, more loosely clustered groups of stars, generally contain less than...
s and nebula
Nebula
A nebula is an interstellar cloud of dust, hydrogen gas, helium gas and other ionized gases...
e. He published his observations in 1844 in the Cycle of Celestial Objects, which earned him the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society
Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society
-History:In the early years, more than one medal was often awarded in a year, but by 1833 only one medal was being awarded per year. This caused a problem when Neptune was discovered in 1846, because many felt an award should jointly be made to John Couch Adams and Urbain Le Verrier...
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 the Bedford Catalogue and contained Smyth's 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, and in the Foreword to that edition George Lovi (astronomer and writer) writes, "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, Smyth moved to Cardiff
Cardiff
Cardiff is the capital, largest city and most populous county of Wales and the 10th largest city in the United Kingdom. The city is Wales' chief commercial centre, the base for most national cultural and sporting institutions, the Welsh national media, and the seat of the National Assembly for...
in 1839 to supervise the construction of the Bute Dock
Cardiff Docks
Cardiff Docks is a port in south Cardiff, Wales. At its peak, the port was one of the largest dock systems in the world with a total quayage of almost...
which he had designed, see his Report, of which a copy is held at the Institution of Civil Engineers
Institution of Civil Engineers
Founded on 2 January 1818, the Institution of Civil Engineers is an independent professional association, based in central London, representing civil engineering. Like its early membership, the majority of its current members are British engineers, but it also has members in more than 150...
. His observatory was dismantled and the telescope was sold to Dr John Lee
John Lee (astronomer)
John Lee LL.D , born John Fiott, was an English philanthropist, astronomer, mathematician, antiquarian and barrister.-Family:...
and re-erected in a new observatory of Smyth's own design at Hartwell House nearby.
Smyth moved to Stone near Aylesbury in 1842, and still had the opportunity to use the telescope since his residence at St. John's Lodge was not far from its new location, and he performed a large number of additional astronomical observations from 1839 to 1859. The telescope is presently in the Science Museum, London. See his book "Aedes Hartwellianae, or notices of the Mansion of Hartwell" (1851), which has illustrations by his wife Annarella
Eliza Anne "Annarella" Warington
Eliza Anne Warington was born in Naples, Italy, the daughter of Thomas Warington, the British Consul. She was known as "Annarella" for most of her life; that is a Neapolitan diminutive of Anne that you may hear being used in the region today...
née Warington, two sons - Charles Piazzi Smyth
Charles Piazzi Smyth
Charles Piazzi Smyth , was Astronomer Royal for Scotland from 1846 to 1888, well-known for many innovations in astronomy and his pyramidological and metrological studies of the Great Pyramid of Giza....
(the Astronomer-Royal for Scotland) and Captain Henry Augustus Smyth
Henry Augustus Smyth
Sir Henry Augustus Smyth , FSA, FRGS, Governor of Malta, general and colonel commandant Royal Artillery, born at St James's Street, London, on 25 November 1825, was third son in the family of three sons and six daughters of Admiral William Henry Smyth by his wife Annarella, only daughter of Thomas...
(Royal Artillery) - a daughter Ellen Philadelphia and his son-in-law, Rev. Professor Baden Powell
Baden Powell (mathematician)
Baden Powell, MA, FRS, FRGS was an English mathematician and Church of England priest. He was also prominent as a liberal theologian who put forward advanced ideas about evolution. He held the Savilian Chair of Geometry at the University of Oxford from 1827 to 1860...
. Latterly, he also had a house in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea.
Smyth was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in June 1826.
A lunar mare
Lunar mare
The lunar maria are large, dark, basaltic plains on Earth's Moon, formed by ancient volcanic eruptions. They were dubbed maria, Latin for "seas", by early astronomers who mistook them for actual seas. They are less reflective than the "highlands" as a result of their iron-rich compositions, and...
was named Mare Smythii
Mare Smythii
Mare Smythii is a lunar mare located along the equator on the easternmost edge of the lunar near side. The Smythii basin where the mare is located is of the Pre-Nectarian epoch, while the surrounding features are of the Nectarian system...
in his honour.
Vice-President of the Royal Society;
Founder of the United Services Institution (in 1829);
Founder of the Royal Geographical Society;
Director of the Society of Antiquaries;
Hydrographer to the Navy;
Noted astronomer;
see D.N.B.
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. RASoc Obituary.
As a sailor, Smyth also wrote a quite different book, "Nautical Terms - The Sailor's Word-Book " from which:-
William Henry Smyth (1788-1865) devoted most of his naval career to surveying, and the results, often carried out in collaboration with French, Austrian and Neapolitan surveyors, were highly acclaimed. He was a Fellow and, later, President (1849-51) of the Royal Geographical Society. In 1858 he began to assemble the Sailor's Word-Book from material amassed during his long career. Although he completed the work, he died before he saw its publication.
And again, from the same work (re-printed in 2011):-
The recent loss of Admiral William Henry Smyth, noticed as it was by the leading periodicals, will have recalled to many, not only the social character and amiable qualities of the compiler of this Work, but also his distinguished professional career and high reputation as an officer,
a navigator, and a seaman, which will be a guarantee for the details of this posthumous publication.