Person Smyth; Charles Piazzi (1819 - 1900) Smyth Charles Piazzi 1819 - 1900 Male Naples, Italy 03 January 1819 Clova, near Ripon 21/02/1900 19000221 Burial: Sharow churchyard, Ripon, Yorkshire

1 Hill-side Crescent, Edinburgh (1857)

Astronomy Career: Assistant in the Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope (1835-1845), cooperated with Sir Thomas Maclear in the extension of Lacaille's arc; produced oldest known calotypes of people and scenes in Southern Africa with the help of John Herschel; Astronomer Royal for Scotland and Regius Professor of Astronomy, University of Edinburgh (1845-1888), introduced time service for Edinburgh with time ball on the Nelson monument and later a time gun fired from Edinburgh Castle (1861); resigned Fellowship on 7 February 1874 on the Society denying him the reading of his paper on the interpretation of the design of the Great Pyramid, published "The Great Pyramid and the Royal Society"; Became obsessed with the metre - he believed the decimal system was foreign, French, and atheist. Claimed if the pyramids were measured very accurately, it was possible to tell that they were based on the British yard, given by God and built by the Hebrews. Led expeditions to Egypt to meausre them accurately to prove this. Use of the yard in the Pyramids proved there were common values between the founders of Egypt and the Anglo-Saxons, and so helped to justify the Conquest of Egypt in 1881-2. Named after Giuseppe Piazzi FRS, his godfather; son of Admiral William Henry Smyth FRS; brother of Sir Warington Wilkinson Smyth FRS; married (1855) Jessie Duncan (d 1896) Withdrew 1874 Fellow 11/06/1857 1874 Sources: Bulloch's Roll; DNB; DSB International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families - ISAAR(CPF) - Ottawa 1996 ISBN 0-9696035-3-3 National Council on Archives, Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997 3 Jan 1819 - 21 Feb 1900 NA3757 21/11/2001 Andyg Martind 14/01/2026 RS_NET\VidaM Yes http://viaf.org/viaf/42647586 a5378843-0bee-415d-b773-a538691b9763