Archibald Smith of Jordanhill (10 August 1813, in Greenhead,

North Lanarkshire North Lanarkshire (; ) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland. It borders the north-east of the Glasgow City council area and contains many of Glasgow's suburbs, commuter towns, and villages. It also borders East Dunbartonshire, Falkirk (co ...

– 26 December 1872, in London) was a Scottish barrister and amateur mathematician.

Early life and education

He was the only son of James Smith

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and Literature, letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". ...

(1782-1867), a wealthy merchant and antiquary and owner of the Jordanhill estate in

Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...

,George Stewart
'Archibald Smith'
in ''Curiosities of Glasgow Citizenship'', 1881, p. 238 and his wife Mary Wilson, granddaughter of Alexander Wilson, professor of astronomy in

Glasgow University The University of Glasgow (abbreviated as ''Glas.'' in post-nominals; ) is a public research university in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded by papal bull in , it is the fourth-oldest university in the English-speaking world and one of Scotland's four ...

(and brother of

Patrick Wilson Patrick Joseph Wilson (born July 3, 1973) is an American actor. He began his career in 1995, starring in Broadway theatre, Broadway musicals. He received nominations for two Tony Awards for his roles in ''The Full Monty (musical), The Full Mont ...

). He was educated at the Redland School near Bristol from 1826 to 1828. Archibald studied law at Glasgow University from 1828, and then at

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any ...

, where he was

Senior Wrangler The Senior Wrangler is the top mathematics undergraduate at the University of Cambridge in England, a position which has been described as "the greatest intellectual achievement attainable in Britain". Specifically, it is the person who achiev ...

, said to be the first Scot to achieve this position, and first

Smith's prize Smith's Prize was the name of each of two prizes awarded annually to two research students in mathematics and theoretical physics at the University of Cambridge from 1769. Following the reorganization in 1998, they are now awarded under the names ...

man in 1836, elected a fellow of Trinity College. He was one of the founders of the '' Cambridge Mathematical Journal''. He graduated BA in 1836 and MA in 1839.

Career as lawyer

He entered

Lincoln's Inn The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn, commonly known as Lincoln's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court (professional associations for Barrister, barristers and judges) in London. To be called to the bar in order to practise as a barrister ...

, and was called to the bar as a barrister in 1841. He then practised as an equity draughtsman and property lawyer in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

Career as scientist

His scientific work was mainly in the field of applications of

magnetism Magnetism is the class of physical attributes that occur through a magnetic field, which allows objects to attract or repel each other. Because both electric currents and magnetic moments of elementary particles give rise to a magnetic field, ...

and the

Earth's magnetic field Earth's magnetic field, also known as the geomagnetic field, is the magnetic field that extends from structure of Earth, Earth's interior out into space, where it interacts with the solar wind, a stream of charged particles emanating from ...

. He obtained practical formulae for the correction of magnetic compass observations made on board ship, which General Sir

Edward Sabine Sir Edward Sabine (; 14 October 1788 – 26 June 1883) was an Irish physicist, geodesist,astronomer, geophysicist, ornithologist, polar explorer, soldier, and the 30th president of the Royal Society. He led the effort to establish a system o ...

published in the '' Transactions'' of the Royal Society: Smith later made convenient tables. In 1859 he edited

William Scoresby William Scoresby (5 October 178921 March 1857) was an English whaler, Arctic explorer, scientist and clergyman. Early years Scoresby was born in the village of Cropton near Pickering south-west of Whitby in Yorkshire. His father, Willia ...

's ''Journal of a Voyage to Australia for Magnetical Research'' and gave an exact formula for the effect of the iron of a ship on the compass. In 1862, in conjunction with the hydrographer Sir Frederick John Owen Evans FRS (1815-1885), then superintendent of the compass department of the navy, he published an ''Admiralty Manual for ascertaining and applying the Deviations of the Compass caused by the Iron in a Ship''. He was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was establis ...

in 1837 his proposer being

James David Forbes James David Forbes (1809–1868) was a Scottish physicist and glaciologist who worked extensively on the conduction of heat and seismology. Forbes was a resident of Edinburgh for most of his life, educated at its University and a professor ...

. Elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

in June 1856, he was awarded its

Royal Medal The Royal Medal, also known as The Queen's Medal and The King's Medal (depending on the gender of the monarch at the time of the award), is a silver-gilt medal, of which three are awarded each year by the Royal Society. Two are given for "the mo ...

in 1865 "for his papers in the Philosophical Transactions and elsewhere, on the magnetism of ships". In 1866 Emperor

Alexander II of Russia Alexander II ( rus, Алекса́ндр II Никола́евич, Aleksándr II Nikoláyevich, p=ɐlʲɪˈksandr ftɐˈroj nʲɪkɐˈlajɪvʲɪtɕ; 29 April 181813 March 1881) was Emperor of Russia, Congress Poland, King of Poland and Grand Du ...

presented him with a gold compass, set in diamonds, and emblazoned with the Imperial Arms. He died in London on 26 December 1872.

Personal life

In 1853, Smith married Susan Emma Parker, daughter of Sir James Parker of

Rothley Temple Rothley Temple, or more correctly Rothley Preceptory, (pronounced ''Rowth-Ley'') was a preceptory (a religious establishment operated by certain orders of monastic knights) in the village of Rothley, Leicestershire, England, associated with bo ...

, Leicestershire, and Mary Babington. They had six sons and two daughters: * James Parker Smith

(1854–1929) M.P. for

Partick Partick (, Scottish Gaelic: ''Partaig'') is an area of Glasgow on the north bank of the River Clyde, just across from Govan. To the west lies Whiteinch, to the east Yorkhill and Kelvingrove Park (across the River Kelvin), and to the north Broo ...

Lanarkshire Lanarkshire, also called the County of Lanark (; ), is a Counties of Scotland, historic county, Lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area and registration county in the Central Lowlands and Southern Uplands of Scotland. The county is no l ...

*Rev. Walter Edward Smith (1855–1940), vicar at Andover *Lt. Com. Charles Stewart Smith (1859–1934)], Royal Navy officer, British Diplomat * Arthur Smith (curator), Arthur Hamilton Smith (1860–1941), museum curator and archaeologist *Sir

Henry Babington Smith Sir Henry Babington Smith (29 January 1863 – 29 September 1923) was a senior British civil servant, who served in a wide range of posts overseas, mostly financial, before becoming a director of the Bank of England. He was related to the B ...

(1863–1923), prominent civil servant and banker *Mary Susan Smith (1865–1915) *Margaret Smith (1867–1904) *Brig. Gen. George Edward Smith (1868–1944)

Notes

References

* * Obituary notice by "W.T." (

Lord Kelvin William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin (26 June 182417 December 1907), was a British mathematician, Mathematical physics, mathematical physicist and engineer. Born in Belfast, he was the Professor of Natural Philosophy (Glasgow), professor of Natur ...

), Proceedings of the Royal Society 22 (1873-1874) pp. 1-xxiv (the first known occurrence of the phrase ''

harmonic analysis Harmonic analysis is a branch of mathematics concerned with investigating the connections between a function and its representation in frequency. The frequency representation is found by using the Fourier transform for functions on unbounded do ...

'' is on p.v

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Archibald 1813 births 1872 deaths Alumni of the University of Glasgow Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge 19th-century British mathematicians Scottish mathematicians Members of Lincoln's Inn Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Fellows of the Royal Society Royal Medal winners Senior Wranglers