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Biography of Admiral William Smyth (1800–77)
Royal Naval officer and artist who entered the Navy in April 1813. Smyth passed his lieutenant’s examination in 1819 and served as a passed midshipman and mate including on the Blossom under Frederick Beechey in the Pacific, 1825 –28, until commissioned lieutenant during that voyage, in May 1827. From June 1831 to early 1835 he was lieutenant under Captain Charles Henry Paget in the Samarang, 28 guns, in the Pacific, crossed the Andes and made a voyage down the Amazon. He later published an account of this journey, in conjunction with a fellow officer, Frederick Lowe (‘Narrative of Journey from Lima to Para’, 1836). From May 1836, he was senior lieutenant of the Terror on Captain George Back’s North-West Passage expedition to the Wager River. Here, he superintended the crew evening school and ‘managed’ the amateur ‘Royal Arctic Theatre’ – both classic naval Arctic expedition winter-quarters activities. Smyth Harbour on Southampton Island, Hudson’s Bay, is named after him and, apparently, Cape Smyth near Point Barrow, Alaska.
Although most naval officers learnt to draw for navigational reasons, Smith had professional-level artistic talent. He did fine drawings and watercolours of his travels, including ship portraits (examples of HM ships Blossom and Sparrowhawk in the National Maritime Museum, London). His views on Back’s expedition were lithographed to illustrate the official account and he became a lifelong Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society from about 1836–37. The NMM also has a striking large oil painting by him of the ‘HMS Terror in the Ice’. He was promoted Commander on his return that November and from September 1838 captained the Grecian, 16 guns, in South America and at the Cape of Good Hope. This was his last service: when she paid off he was promoted Captain, 25 December 1843, and rose by seniority to Admiral on the retired list in December 1875. He died on 25 September 1877. Smyth is often confused with his contemporary, Admiral William Henry Smyth (1788–1865), who had a more extensive – and more self-promoting – career, including as a surveyor and scientific writer, and is now best known as author of ‘The Sailor’s Word-Book’ (1867).
View paintings by Admiral William Smyth
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