Smith, William Henry

William Smith was born in Westminster in London. He was the only son of Joseph Smith and Georgina Caroline Pitt Pilkington, granddaughter of the Anglo-Irish poetess Laetitia Pilkington (wife of Matthew Pilkington, friend of Jonathan Swift ). William's father was a British colonist in America, lived in New Jersey , but after the American Revolution he returned to England as a loyalist , where he died shortly after the birth of his son. William's stepbrother was the famous artist and traveler .

At the age of 14, William fled home and enlisted in the merchant fleet. In 1804, he served on the ship of the East India Company Marquis Cornwallis , which the UK government chartered for an expedition to the Seychelles. The following March, Cornwallis was bought by the British Navy and equipped with 50 guns. Captain Charles Johnston was appointed commander of the ship, under whose leadership Smith served in the Navy for many years. In February 1808, Smith and Johnston were transferred to the Powerful battleship, which, upon returning to England, was sent to the Dutch expedition of 1809 . Subsequently, Smith served on the 74-gun battleship Milford , then commanded the Spanish gunboat Mors aut Gloria and for several months participated in the siege of Cadiz (September 1810 - April 1811). Since July 1811, Smith served on the ship , and since 1812 - on the coast of Spain ^[1] .

On March 25, 1813, Smith was promoted to lieutenant of the fleet and assigned to serve in the Sicilian flotilla, where he proved himself to be a hydrograph and expert on antiquities. For his services in defending Sicily, Smith was awarded the Order of St. Ferdinand and the diploma of the King of Both Sicilies Ferdinand I in 1816 ^[2] .

September 18, 1815 Smith was promoted to , but was not assigned to command the ship; for some time he continued hydrographic surveys on the brig off the coast of Sicily, the adjacent coast of Italy, and also off the coast of Africa. Smith’s maps and sketches were praised by the Admiralty for its beauty and quality of execution.

After Sicily, Smith conducted hydrographic work in the Adriatic Sea , in collaboration with the authorities of Austria-Hungary and the Kingdom of Naples, produced Mercator maps and Carta di Cabottaggio del Mare Adriatico ("Coastal Map of the Adriatic Sea"), published in 1822-24 ^[3] .

At this time (1815-1817), Smith's half-brother Augustus Earle, who turned 22 years old in 1815, visited Sicily, Malta, Gibraltar, and North Africa. Smith obtained permission from the commander in chief of the English Mediterranean Fleet, Admiral Pellhois, to carry Augustus through the Mediterranean Sea aboard Scylla .

In 1817, Smith was transferred by the captain to the 10-gun transport HMS Aid (1809) (renamed Adventure in 1821). This transport, reconstructed as a hydrographic vessel, subsequently accompanied the Beagle sloop on his first expedition in 1826-30. In the second expedition "Beagle" (1831-36), in which Charles Darwin took part, Smith's stepbrother August Earle also took part as a ship painter.

On the ship, Aid Smith carried out hydrographic surveys of the coasts of Italy, Sicily, Greece and Africa, preparing a large number of nautical charts that were used by the British Navy until the middle of the 20th century, for which he earned the nickname "Mediterranean Smith" ^{[4] [5]} .

In 1817, in Palermo, Smith met the Italian astronomer D. Piazzi and visited his observatory. This acquaintance marked the beginning of Smith's interest in astronomy, and D. Piazzi became the godfather of Smith's first son , to whom William gave the middle name in honor of the astronomer - Piazzi.

On February 7, 1824, Smith was promoted to , and in November 1825, at the age of 37, he was removed from his post as captain of Adventure . This was the end of Smith's service at sea, after which he focused on literary and scientific activities ^[1] .

In 1846, Smith was fired from the Navy with a half salary (18 shillings a day) ^[6] . Already retired, on May 28, 1853, he was promoted to rear admiral (“no increase in wages”) ^[7] , May 17, 1858 - to vice admiral (with calculation of length of service since February 13) ^[8] , and November 14, 1863 - to the admirals ^{[9] [10]} .

From 1845 to 1847, Smith was president of the Royal Astronomical Society , in 1849-1850 - president of the Royal Geographical Society ; in addition, he was vice president and secretary of international affairs of the Royal Society of London , vice president and director of the Society of Antiquaries, and also an honorary member or corresponding member of at least three quarters of literary and scientific societies in Europe ^[1] .

In 1854, Smith was awarded the Royal Geographical Society Gold Medal for hydrographic work in the Mediterranean ^[11] .

In early September 1865, Smith suffered a heart attack in his house near Aylesbury . After some improvement in well-being, on September 8, he telescoped the planet Jupiter to his grandson, Arthur Flower. Then came a sharp deterioration in well-being, and on the morning of September 9, 1865, William Smith died at the age of 78. He was buried in a cemetery in the village of near Aylesbury.

In honor of Smith, the sea on the Moon and Smith are named in the Balleny Archipelago off the coast of Antarctica.

William Smith married Elise-Ann Warington, daughter of the British consul in the Kingdom of Naples , their wedding took place in Messina on October 7, 1815. In marriage they had eleven children - three sons and eight daughters. Sons - astronomer Charles Piazzi Smith , geologist Warington Smith and General Henry Augustus Smith. Of the eight daughters of Smith, two died in childhood, two died at the age of 20, and one at 25. The remaining three daughters:

• Henrietta Grace, who married a professor of mathematics at the University of Osford University and was the mother of nine children, including the founder of the scout movement Robert Baden-Powell ;
• Georgiana Rosetta married a physician, zoologist and anthropologist William Henry Flower , they had seven children in a marriage;
• Ellen Philadelphia married Captain Henry Toynbee and moved to Australia in 1855; died childless in 1881 at the age of 52 after a long illness.

• Obituary in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Vol XXVI (November 1865 to June 1866) pp. 121-129
• William Henry Smith in the Gutenberg Project
• Internet Archive