Robert Brough Smyth

[2] Smyth arrived in the colony of Victoria on 14 November 1852 and was for a short period on the goldfields before entering the Victorian survey department as a draftsman under the surveyor-general, Andrew Clarke.

He was also responsible for various pamphlets on the mining resources of the colony including Hints for the Guidance of Surveyors and Others Collecting Specimens of Rocks, which appeared in 1871.

Three members of parliament were appointed to inquire into the matter, and after a series of sittings held in February, March and April 1876, Smyth resigned from the service.

Smyth had been working for many years collecting materials for a book on the life of Indigenous Australians, which was published in 1878 at the expense of the Victorian government in two large volumes, The Aborigines of Victoria: with notes relating to the habits of the Natives of Other Parts of Australia and Tasmania.

[2] Smyth was survived by his wife Emma Charlotte, née Hay, whom he had married on 15 August 1856 at St Paul's Church, Melbourne, and by a son and daughter.