William Smith (c. 1790–1847) was an English

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

born in

Blyth, Northumberland Blyth () is a town and civil parish in southeast Northumberland, England. It lies on the coast, to the south of the River Blyth and is approximately northeast of Newcastle upon Tyne. It has a population of about 37,000, as of 2011. The port o ...

, who discovered the

South Shetland Islands The South Shetland Islands are a group of Antarctic islands with a total area of . They lie about north of the Antarctic Peninsula, and between southwest of the nearest point of the South Orkney Islands. By the Antarctic Treaty of 1 ...

, an

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands, or sometimes a sea containing a small number of scattered islands. Examples of archipelagos include: the Indonesian Arch ...

off the

Graham Land Graham Land is the portion of the Antarctic Peninsula that lies north of a line joining Cape Jeremy and Cape Agassiz. This description of Graham Land is consistent with the 1964 agreement between the British Antarctic Place-names Committee an ...

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest cont ...

. His discovery was the first ever made south of 60° south latitude, in the present Antarctic Treaty area.

Early life and Apprenticeship

Earsdon Parish Records held at Woodhorn Museum show that William, eldest son of William and Mary Smith, was baptised at St. Cuthbert's Church on 10 October 1790. Smith had a younger brother, Thomas, and sister, Mary, and his father was a Joiner of Seaton Sluice. In the eighteenth century, boys would start their seven-year apprenticeship at sea at the age of fourteen. According to John Miers' account of the discovery, William Smith had undertaken his apprenticeship ‘in the Greenland whale-fishery’. (At that time, there was a substantial British whaling industry, including to

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland ...

.) During his life he worked with

Richard Siddins Richard Siddins (1770–1846) was an Australian master mariner, harbour pilot and lighthouse keeper. Biography Richard Siddins was born in 1770 (the exact place and date of birth is unknown) and died on 2 July 1846 in New South Wales, Aus ...

, described by historian Ida Lee as "...perhaps the greatest traveler of them all, who gave so much information concerning early

Fiji Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consis ...

, and delighted to hold mission services on board his ship in Sydney Harbour." By 1811 Smith became part owner of the ship , which was then under construction in

.''Lloyd's Register'' (1813), "W" supple. pages, Seq.No.W41.
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Discovery of Antarctica

In 1819, while sailing cargo on ''William'' from

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

Valparaíso Valparaíso (; ) is a major city, seaport, naval base, and educational centre in the commune of Valparaíso, Chile. "Greater Valparaíso" is the second largest metropolitan area in the country. Valparaíso is located about northwest of Santiago ...

, he sailed further south round

Cape Horn Cape Horn ( es, Cabo de Hornos, ) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which are the Diego Ramí ...

in an attempt to catch the right winds. On 19 February 1819 he spotted the new land at 62° south latitude and 60° west longitude, but did not land on it (based on those coordinates, it was most likely Livingston Island.) The naval authorities did not believe his discovery, but on a subsequent trip on 16 October he landed on the largest of the islands. He named the island King George Island and the archipelago

in honour of the

Shetland Islands Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands and formerly Zetland, is a subarctic archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands and Norway. It is the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the n ...

which are to the north of Scotland. At the beginning of the following year, 1820, the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against Fr ...

chartered ''William'' and dispatched with her with Lieutenant Edward Bransfield on board to survey the newly discovered islands, discovering also the

Antarctic Peninsula The Antarctic Peninsula, known as O'Higgins Land in Chile and Tierra de San Martín in Argentina, and originally as Graham Land in the United Kingdom and the Palmer Peninsula in the United States, is the northernmost part of mainland Antarctic ...

in the process.

Honours

Smith Island and Cape Smith in the

are named after William Smith.

References

Sources

Antarctic Voyages and Expeditions
retrieved on 2 March 2005 * Glasgow Digital Library

retrieved on 2 March 2005 * Ashgate Publishing

summary of the book retrieved on 2 March 2005 * Ivanov, L
General Geography and History of Livingston Island.
In: ''Bulgarian Antarctic Research: A Synthesis''. Eds. C. Pimpirev and N. Chipev. Sofia: St. Kliment Ohridski University Press, 2015. pp. 17–28. {{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, William 1790 births People from Blyth, Northumberland Explorers of Antarctica South Shetland Islands English explorers 19th-century explorers People associated with Shetland Sealers British people in whaling 1847 deaths

Early life and Apprenticeship

Discovery of Antarctica

Honours

See also

References

Sources