William Marshall Smart

Who was William Marshall Smart?

William Marshall Smart FRSE FRAS was a Scottish astronomer.

He was born in Doune to Peter Fernie Smart and Isabella Marshall Harrower. He was educated at the McLaren High School, in Callander, and graduated MA from Glasgow University in 1910 in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. He went on to graduate with a triple first in the Mathematical Triposes at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he won the Tyson Medal for Astronomy.

He served in the Royal Navy during World War I as an instructor in navigation and then returned to Cambridge in 1919 as a lecturer in Mathematics and John Couch Adams Astronomer. With Commander FN Shearme, he wrote the Admiralty Manual of Navigation. From 1937 to 1959 he was Regius Professor of Astronomy at Glasgow University. The first edition of his Text-Book on Spherical Astronomy appeared in 1931.

During World War II, Adams published four volumes on sea and air navigation that became textbooks in the armed services. He wrote more than twenty academic books during his career, and was recognised as a leader in his field.