Archibald Smith

Archibald Smith of Jordanhill FRS FRSE (10 August 1813, in Greenhead, North Lanarkshire – 26 December 1872, in London) was a Scottish barrister and amateur mathematician.

In 1859 he edited William Scoresby'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.

[3] He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1837 his proposer being James David Forbes.

[5] In 1866 Emperor Alexander II of Russia presented him with a gold compass, set in diamonds, and emblazoned with the Imperial Arms.

Archibald Smith of Jordanhill, upon graduation at Trinity College, Cambridge (Senior Wrangler)
Carte de visite depicting Archibald Smith, 1860s.