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Admiral William Henry Smyth

Male 1788 - 1865  (77 years)    Has 13 ancestors and more than 100 descendants in this family tree.

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  • Name William Henry Smyth 
    Prefix Admiral 
    Birth 21 Jan 1788  Westminster, London, Middlesex, England Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Gender Male 
    Prominent People RN Admiral 
    Death 9 Sep 1865 
    Burial Stone Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Siblings 1 Sibling 
    Person ID I251219  Geneagraphie
    Links To This person is also William Henry Smyth at Wikipedia 
    Last Modified 17 Apr 2007 

    Father Joseph Brewer Palmer Smyth,   b. 1737, New Jersey, USA Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 1788, Quebec, Canada Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 51 years) 
    Mother Georgina Caroline Pitt Pilkington,   b. 1758   d. 11 Aug 1838 (Age 80 years) 
    Marriage 1780 
    Family ID F101646  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family Eliza Anne Warington,   b. 3 Apr 1788, Napoli, Campania, Italia Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 9 Jan 1873, Paddington, London, Middlesex, England Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 84 years) 
    Marriage 7 Oct 1815  Messina Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Children 
     1. Elizabeth Smyth,   b. Jul 1816, Napoli, Campania, Italia Find all individuals with events at this location
    +2. Warington Wilkinson Smyth,   b. 26 Aug 1817, Napoli, Campania, Italia Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 19 Jun 1890 (Age 72 years)
     3. Elizabeth Anne Smyth,   b. 1819, Napoli, Campania, Italia Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 1821 (Age 2 years)
     4. Charles Piazzi Smyth,   b. 3 Jan 1819, Napoli, Campania, Italia Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 21 Feb 1900 (Age 81 years)
     5. Jane Phoebe Smyth,   b. 1821   d. 1842 (Age 21 years)
    +6. Henrietta Grace Smyth,   b. 3 Sep 1824   d. 13 Oct 1914 (Age 90 years)
     7. General Henry Augustus Smyth,   b. 25 Nov 1825, St. James's Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 18 Sep 1906, Stone Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 80 years)
     8. Josephine B Smyth,   b. Nov 1826   d. 1847 (Age 20 years)
     9. Ellen Philedelphia Smyth,   b. 17 Mar 1828   d. 1881 (Age 52 years)
     10. Caroline Mary Smyth,   b. Feb 1834   d. 25 Sep 1859 (Age 25 years)
    +11. Georgiana Rosetta Smyth,   b. 19 Feb 1835, Bedford, Kaapkolonie, Suid Afrika Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 7 Jan 1923, London, Middlesex, England Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 87 years)
    Family ID F101649  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 30 Aug 2011 

  • Event Map Click to hide
    Link to Google MapsBirth - 21 Jan 1788 - Westminster, London, Middlesex, England Link to Google Earth
     = Link to Google Earth 
    Pin Legend  : Address       : Location       : City/Town       : County/Shire       : State/Province       : Country       : Not Set

  • Photos Photos (Log in)Photos (Log in)

  • Notes 
    • rose through the ranks of the Royal Navy to retire as an Admiral in 1863. He was a noted hydrographer and astronomer and was Vice President of the Royal Society. According to his great-grandson, his charts of the Mediterranean were still in use in 1961. His Cycle of Celestial Objects remains a classical text in the history of astronomy and was republished in 1986. The Sailor's Word-Book was is still in print (Conway Maritime Press, 1991) and runs some 744 pages of definitions

      Smyth joined the Royal Navy and during the Napoleonic wars he served in the Mediterranean, eventually achieving the rank of Admiral. He married Annarella Warrington in 1815. During a hydrographic survey in 1817 he met the Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi in Palermo, Sicily, and visited his observatory; this sparked his interest in astronomy and in 1825 he retired from the Navy to establish a private observatory in Bedford, England, equipped with a 5.9-inch refractor telescope. 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 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 1604 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.
      Having completed his observations, Smyth retired to Cardiff in 1839. His observatory was dismantled and the telescope was sold to Dr. John Lee and re-erected in a new observatory of his own design at Hartwell House. Smyth still had the opportunity to use it since his residence at St. John's Lodge was not far from its new location, and did a large number of additional astronomical observations from 1839 to 1859. The present whereabouts of the telescope are unknown.
      Smyth suffered a heart attack in early September, 1865, and at first seemed to recover. On September 8 he showed the planet Jupiter to his young grandson, Arthur Smyth Flower, through a telescope. A few hours later in the early morning of September 9, at age 78, he died. He was buried in the churchyard at Stone near Aylesbury.
      A lunar mare was named Mare Smythii in his honour.
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