Page 39 - Ranger Demo

Smyth published A Memoir descriptive of the Resources, Inhabitants, and Hydrography of Sicily and the neighbouring islands in 1824. It was illustrated with 14 magnificent plates Engraved by William Daniell, who was now in great demand as a result of the success of A Voyage around the Coasts of Great Britain.
Figure 7 Smyth’s survey of Port Mahon, Minorca, showing control stations and simple topography. UKHO a44 on Sf
Smyth's book is a lively work, full of colour, in which he sought to be fair to the people amongst whom he had worked. He had many reasons to remember his days in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies with deep affection. He would always prize the decoration awarded to him by the Sicilian court in recognition of his valour and services in defence of Messina. His meeting with Piazzi led to a life-long friendship that shaped Smyth's later years, which were devoted to the pursuit of astronomy. But above all, it was in 1815 in Sicily that he met and married Eliza Anne Warrington, daughter of the British Consul in Naples. Annarella, as she was known, was his match in age and temperament, a serious and intellectual woman who would be his assistant in his scientific work in later life, and who meanwhile saw his works through the publication process whilst her husband was at sea.30
Smyth's sailing directions are tucked away in an annex to the Memoir. They still ring true when read on the ground today, not least along the treacherous south-west coast where Smyth noted that 10 British vessels had been lost within a decade. His recommendation that a light-house 120 feet in height be erected at Cape Granitola was followed in 1865.31 His was a new and confident voice, expressing standards and conventions which would become the hallmark of RN survey work in the century ahead.
In 1824 the Admiralty ordered Smyth to conclude his surveys in the Mediterranean. His patron, Thomas Hurd, had died in the previous year. Smyth would be given no more field survey assignments. His compilation work in the Hydrographical Office was curtailed. His later years would be spent on astronomical observations in his observatory, and in membership of the new learned societies which were springing up. The story of his old military companions is less well recorded. It seems likely that their part in the survey of Sicily came to an end in 1816. Edward Thompson was promoted to captain
30 TNA ADM 12/216, Cut 4, Pro S, letter dated 17 Apr. 1823 31 Smyth, Memoir of Sicily, 223-4
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