A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Smyth, William Henry
SMYTH, K.F.M., D.C.L., V.P.R.S., Pres. R.A.S., &c. (Captain 1824. f-p., 19; h-p., 23.)
William Henry Smyth, born 21 Jan. 1788, at Westminster, is only son, by Georgina Caroline, grand-daughter of the Rev. Mr. Pilkington, of the late Joseph Brewer Palmer Smyth, Esq., of New Jersey, who, embracing the Royalist cause during the War of Independence in America, fought under General Burgoyne in the battles which preceded the catastrophe at Saratoga, and was in consequence deprived of the very considerable landed property he possessed. He is descended, paternally, from the celebrated Capt. John Smith, whose valour and genius proved so instrumental to the colonization of Virginia; and wears the armorial bearings granted to that distinguished person.
This officer, who had witnessed in a merchant-vessel the reduction of Tobago, and had taken part in the E.I.Co.’s frigate Cornwallis in an expedition against the Mahe Islands in 1804, entered the Navy, 18 March, 1805, when the latter ship was purchased by Government, and placed under the command of Capt. Chas. Jas. Johnston, with whom he continued to serve in the scp 74, until transferred, in Oct. 1809, to the Milford 74, Capts. Henry Wm. Bayntun and Edw. Kittoe. He was in consequence present, in the Cornwallis, in several typhoons in the China seas; also in a variety of skirmishes with the enemy’s formidable batteries on the Isle of France; and in a gallant attack made, 11 Nov. 1806, in company with the Sceptre 74, upon the French frigate Sémillante, 3 armed ships, and 12 sail of merchantmen at anchor in St. Paul’s Bay, Ile de Bourbon. He also cruized for a long time in the Pacific. On his return to Europe in the Powerful, Mr. Smyth accompanied the expedition of 1809 to the Scheldt. After participating, in the Milford, in numerous attacks upon the enemy’s coasting-trade near Rochefort, he proceeded to Cadiz, where, being appointed to the command, 4 Sept. 1810, of a large Spanish gun-boat, the Mors-aut-Gloria, carrying 1 long brass 36-pounder, a 6-inch howitzer, and a British crew of 35 men, he continued arduously employed in its defence until 1811. Uniting during that period in nearly every service performed by the flotilla, he was present, 12 Sept. 1810, and had two of his men severely burnt, in an action with the enemy’s batteries near Matagorda. On 19 of the same month, aided by two vessels similar to his own, he silenced a small battery in the Bay of Bulls. On 3 Oct. the Mors-aut-Gloria was twice struck by shot; on the 5th she was in an engagement with forts Napoleon and Luis – the former mounting 16 heavy guns and 4 mortars – the latter 14 guns, 2 mortars, and 2 howitzers; and on the morning of 1 Nov. she bore a conspicuous part in an affair with seven of the enemy’s gun-vessels, protected by Fort Concepcion, several redoubts, and a corps of horse-artillery on the beach. She was subsequently, 23 Nov., exposed for many hours to a fire from Fort Catalina in an attempt to create a diversion in favour of an attack upon some gun-vessels in the river of Santa Maria. On his retnrn to Cadiz, after witnessing the termination of the battle of Barrosa, Mr. Smyth, who had acquired an accurate knowledge of the circumjacent coast and channels, and had been in consequence sent with despatches to Lieut.-General Graham during his march from Tarifa to Barrosa, was placed in charge of a large flat, armed with a 32-pounder carronade. In this boat he had 3 men mortally wounded, and was nearly sunk, by the enemy’s batteries in the neighbourhood of Matagorda. A few days afterwards, 16 March, 1811, he rendered material assistance, in the Milford’s barge, to a water-logged American ship on shore near Cape Trafalgar; and on the 20th he commanded a boat in an unsuccessful expedition against some piratical privateers near Chipiona. On finally leaving Cadiz the Milford, which, during the operations we have detailed, had borne the flag of Sir Rich. Goodwin Keats, cruized off the coast of Spain, and then Joined the fleet off Toulon. Here Mr. Smyth removed, 1 Aug. 1811, to the Rodney 74, Capts. John Carter Allen and Edw. Durnford King, in which ship he attained the rating of Master’s Mate 14 Dec. following, and was actively employed until paid off on his return to England in Nov. 1812. As a reward for his highly-lauded exertions at Cadiz, and for a valuable survey he had made while there of the Islorde-Leon and the neighbouring coast, accompanied by a detail of the strength of the various French and Spanish batteries, he was presented by Lord Melville with a Lieutenant’s commission dated 25 March, 1813, and appointed to a command in the flotilla employed under Sir Robt. Hall in the defence of Sicily against Joachim Murat. Soon after his arrival there he was intrusted with a confidential mission to the court of Naples, then wavering in its allegiance to Napoleon Buonaparte. On the night of 19 Feb. 1814, being at the time in command of the Scylla brig, bearing the flag of Sir R. Hall, he put off in a boat during a furious gale from Palermo, where he happened to be on shore, to the assistance of a vessel in flames, which proved to be the Whitby transport. He saved one of the crew – all he could – and then made for the land, his being the only boat, out of several, that returned in safety. We subsequently find him, entirely through his own resources, and without any official instructions, engaged in conducting a series of hydrographic operations connecting Barbary, Sicily, and Italy – a service in which he displayed so much talent that Rear-Admiral Chas. Vinicombe Penrose, astonished and delighted with what he had achieved, forwarded to the Admiralty the result of his labours, accompanied by a letter glowing with all the eulogium he deserved. He continued his important labours in a borrowed Sicilian gun-boat long after the British troops had evacuated the island, and afforded such satisfaction to the Admiralty that their Lordships promoted him, 18 Sept. 1815, to the rank of Commander;[1] and not only promoted him, but, “as a mark of their approbation, and an incitement to other officers to give their attention to similar pursuits,” expressed their intention of having a selection of his drawings engraved and published, that he might reap the benefit. Difficulties unforeseen causing this arrangement to be altered, it was determined ultimately that the ‘Atlas of Sicily’ should be engraved in the Admiralty office, and that Capt. Smyth should (which he accordingly did) publish ‘A Memoir descriptive of the Resouroes, Inhabitants, and Hydrography of that and the neighbouring islands, interspersed with antiquarian and other notices.’ Of this work, we may add, the Admiralty purchased 100 copies. In 1817 Capt. Smyth, whose continued exertions in the surveying department, added to his extensive researches among the relics of antiquity in the northern parts of Africa, had by this time gained him high reputation in the scientific world, was appointed to the Aid sloop, and in her he increased his well-earned fame. Although his operations were of too elaborate a character to admit of detail here, we may state that he was selected to complete the grand survey of the shores of the Adriatic commenced by Napoleon Buonaparte; and that, assisted by a party of Austrian and Neapolitan staff officers, and by the Imperial sloop-of-war Velox, he accomplished his task in less than two years, notwithstanding a dreadful plague was raging along the Albanian coast.[2] He afterwards accompanied Sir Thos. Maitland to the Court of the famous Ali Pacha, to treat respecting the cession of Parga; and, prior to his return to England in 1820, he obtained the thanks of Sir Fred. Adam, Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands, for the manner in which he cooperated in suppressing a dangerous insurrection among the inhabitants of Santa Maura, particularly for the rigorous blockade he maintained, and for the assistance he afforded in disarming the population of several Greek villages. His next and last appointment was, 27 Jan. 1821, to the Adventure 6, in which vessel he was again ordered to the Mediterranean for the purpose of carrying out a plan he had himself formed for perfecting the survey of that sea. Deprived by our limits of the pleasure we should feel in following Capt. Smyth over the wide-spread field of his investigations, we must content ourselves with stating that the additions he made during his absence to astronomy, geography, and hydrography procured for him the congratulalions of scientific Europe, and raised him to the first order of maritime surveyors. To him, in a word, to Beaufort, and to Guattier du Parc are we indebted for having every part of the Mediterranean and Euxine, from the Gut of Gibraltar to the Sea of Azov, fixed and determined. “The more I see of your Mediterranean surveys,” says the distingmshed hydrographer of the Admiralty, Sir F. Beaufort, “the more I admire the great extent of your labours, the perseverance of your researches, the acuteness of your details, and the taste with which you have executed the charts. Take them altogether, no survey has ever before issued from the Admiralty that can be compared to yours. It is quite astonishing the work you did – and did in such a masterly manner – in the time you were abroad.” While he commanded the Adventure, Capt. Smyth received from Mehemet Ali an offer of the celebrated “Cleopatra’s Needle,” intended as a present to George IV. – but an opportunity of attempting its embarkation did not occur. In the summer of 1824 he was senior officer off Gibraltar when a body of Constitutionalists under the orders of Don Francisco Valdes surprised Tarifa – a circumstance which, as they were known to have sallied from the rock, involved him in a painful correspondence with General Latour, commanding the French troops at Cadiz, and the Spanish General Don Jose O’Donnell. The efforts, prompt though unavailing, which he made in Sept. of the same year, in conjunction with Capt. Henry Evelyn Pitfield Sturt of the Phaeton 46, to save a ship on fire from destruction, obtained him the thanks of the United States Consul at Gibraltar and of the masters of 11 American merchantmen. He attained Post-rank 7 Feb. 1824; paid the Adventure off in the following Nov.; and accepted the Retirement 1 Oct. 1846.
In reviewing the services of Capt. Smyth, we may observe that he has constructed the following charts and views, viz.:– one (a general outline chart) of the Mediterranean; one of Galita Island and the Gulf of Cattaro; one of the coast of Egypt from Alamaïd to the Rosetta branch of the Nile (with two views); one of the Gulf of Spezia, with plan of Via Reggio; one of the harbour of Villa Franca (with two views); one of the coast of France and Italy from Cape Roux to Monaco; one of the port and road of Marseilles, and the position of La Caseidagne Rock; twenty-six of Sicily; one of the harbours of Pantellaria and Lampedusa, as also of the Pelagic Islands and of the Island of Linosa; four of Malta; three of the south coast of Spain; three of the west coast of Greece; two of the Morea; one of the south coast of France; nine of the north coast of Africa; four of Sardinia; eight of the Adriatic Sea; and four of the west coast of Italy. In the course of 1815 Capt. Smyth obtained two honourable augmentations to his family arms, and was admitted by Sir Wm. Sidney Smith into the Anti-Piratical Society of Knights-Liberators of the Slaves (white and black) in Africa; and in March, 1816, he received the Royal permission to accept and wear the small Cross of the Order of St. Ferdinand and of Merit, granted to him for his valour and services against the enemy off Messina. He was subsequently presented by the Emperor of Austria with a gold snuff-box superbly decorated with brilliants. In 1821 he was admitted into the Antiquarian and Astronomical Societies of London; in June, 1826, he was unanimously elected a F.R.S.; in Dec. following he was voted a member of the society recently established at Florence for Scrutinizing the Statistics and Natural History of Tuscany; in 1829 he was named an Associate of the Academy of Sciences at Palermo; and in July, 1830, he was chosen one of the Council of the Geographical Society of London – an institution he had been instrumental in establishing. He became afterwards one of the Committee for Improving and Extending the ‘Nautical Almanac;’ and within the last few years he has been nominated a Doctor of the Civil Law, a Vice-President of the Royal Geographical Society, an honorary member of the Royal Irish Academy, one of the Board of Greenwich Visitors, and a corresponding member of the Institute of France, the Scientific Academy of Naples, the National Institute of Washington, the Academy of Sciences at Boston, and the Naval Lyceum of New York. Of the Royal and Astronomical Societies he is now Vice-President and President; and of the Antiquarian Society he is Director. From Jan. 1828 until Oct. 1839, and from that period until June, 1842, a meteorological register (published monthly in the ‘United Service Journal’) was kept by Capt. Smyth in an observatory erected by him first at Bedford and then at Cardiff. The instruments belonging to the late Colonel Mark Beaufoy were handsomely lent to him for that purpose by the Council of the Astronomical Society, until his own, far more powerful, were made. Independently of the work alluded to in a former part of this narrative, Capt. Smyth (to whom the public is indebted for the formation of the United Service Museum) published, in 1828, ‘A Sketch of the present State of Sardinia;’ in 1829, ‘The Life and Services of Capt. Philip Beaver, R.N.;’ in 1830, ‘An Account of a Private Observatory recently erected at Bedford,’ and ‘An Account of an Ancient Bath in the Island of Lipari;’ in 1834, ‘A Descriptive Catalogue of a Cabinet of Roman Imperial large Brass Medals;’ in 1836, ‘Observations on Halley’s Comet;’ in 1840, ‘Nautical Observations on the Port and Maritime Vicinity of Cardiff;’ in 1844, ‘A Cycle of Celestial Objects,’ in 2 vols., containing the results of all his astronomical observations – a production which procured him the gold Newtonian medal of the Astronomical Society; and, in 1848, the ‘Description ofan Astrological Clock belonging to the Society of Antiquaries.’ He married, at Messina, 7 Oct. 1815, Annarella, only daughter of T. Warington, Esq., of Naples, and half-sister of Capt. Chas. Peirson, who, when a Lieutenant of the 69th Regt., distinguished himself by the gallant manner in which he supported the immortal Nelson in boarding the San Josef in the action off Cape St. Vincent 14 Feb. 1797. By that lady he has a numerous family. His eldest son, Warington Wilkinson, is Mining Geologist to the Ordnance Survey; his second, Charles Piazzi, is Astronomer Royal for Scotland; and his youngest, Henry Augustus, is a First-Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery.
- ↑ Some time prior to his promotion, Capt. Smyth, having from the summit of Paniria observed a large Neapolitan gun-vessel standing towards the Cala-del-Castello, had stationed himself in an armed boat close under a point of land, where, just as the enemy was rounding it, he dashed alongside, and so completely surprised the crew, that he obtained possession without a man of either party being hurt.
- ↑ The result of Capt. Smyth’s labours was published at the Imperial Geographical Institute at Milan.