SIR WARINGTON

See also:

• WILKINSON, JAMES (1757–1825)
• WILKINSON, JAMES JOHN GARTH (1812-1899)
• WILKINSON, JOHN (1728-1808)
• WILKINSON, SIR JOHN GARDNER (1797—1875)
• WILKINSON, TATE (1739—1803)

WILKINSON

See also:

• SMYTH (or SMITH), JOHN (c. 1570-1612)
• SMYTH (or SMITH), WILLIAM (c. 1460-1514)
• SMYTH, CHARLES
• SIR WARINGTON WILKINSON SMYTH (1817-1890)

SMYTH (1817-1890)  , British geologist, was born at Naples on the 26th of August 1817, his father, Admiral W . H . Smyth (1788-1865), being at the time engaged in the Admiralty Survey of the Mediterranean . He was educated at Westminster and Bedford schocls, and after-wards at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1839 . Having gained a travelling scholarship he spent more than four years in Europe, Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt, paying great attention to mineralogy and mining, examining coalfields, metalliferous mines and salt-works, and making acquaintance with many distinguished geologists and mineralogists . On his return to England in 1844 he was appointed mining geologist on the Geological Survey, and in 1851 lecturer at the School of Mines, a post which he held until 1881 when he relinquished the chair of mineralogy but continued as professor of mining . In later years he became chief mineral inspector to the Office of Woods and Forests, and also to the Duchy of Cornwall . He was elected F.R.S. in 1858 . He became president of the Geological Society of London in 1866-1868, and in 1879 he was chairman of a Royal Commission appointed to inquire into accidents in mines, the work in connexion with which continued until 1886 . He contributed sundry papers to the Memoirs of the Geological Survey, the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society and the Transactions of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall . He was author also of A Year with the Turks (1854), and of A Treatise on Coal and Coal-mining (1867) . He was knighted in 1887 .

He died in London on the 19th of

June 189o, and was buried at St Erth, not far from his country home at Marazion in Cornwall . A portrait and some reminiscences of W . W . Smyth will be found in the Memoir of Sir A . C . Ramsay (1895), by Sir A . Geikie .