Samuel Walter Johnson Smith, 1871 - 1948

Abstract

Samuel Walter Johnson Smith was born on 26 January 1871, the second of the eight children of Walter Mackersie Smith and his wife Margaret Black, both of Ferry-Port on Craig, Fife. He died on 20 August 1948. Throughout his life he was proud of his Scottish origin. Of him it can be truly said that he lived a life of great intellectual distinction with humility and simplicity, characterized by an unfailing devotion to the service of his many pupils. The sense of loss felt by these and his many friends in the world of physics, will be tempered somewhat by their happy memories of his lovable personality. Smith’s father was a distinguished locomotive engineer, a keen advocate and pioneer of the use of high-pressure, compound-cylinder steam-engines for rail transport. His advocacy of such engines is set out with remarkable and convincing clarity in a pamphlet, Simple v. Compound Locomotives , published in 1892 (see Engineering , November 1906; Proc. Institute Mechanical Engineers , 1906). Mr Walter J. Smith (a brother of S. W. J. Smith) informs me that several three-cylinder compound locomotives, operating on Smith’s system, were constructed for, and used by, the Midland and Great Central Railway Companies. The operation of a simple type of valve enabled the engine to be operated either as a semi-compound or simple high-pressure engine so that increased power was made available when required. Two four-cylinder compound locomotives to Smith’s design were built by the North-Eastern Railway Company, but Mackersie Smith lived to see only one of these in service. Round about 1877 he was engaged as locomotive engineer to the Imperial Government Railways of Japan. S. W. J. Smith inherited his father’s love of science and his indomitable spirit of perseverance. Both were good golfers.