Benjamin Leigh Smith

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Stephen Pearce : Benjamin Leigh Smith, 1886
The Eira Lodge on Bell Island

Benjamin Leigh Smith (born March 12, 1828 in Whatlington , Sussex , † January 4, 1913 in Hampstead ) was a British polar explorer .

Smith came from a wealthy Liberal family. He was the illegitimate fourth son of wealthy Whig politician Benjamin Leigh Smith (1783-1860) and milliner Anne Longden (1801-1834). His older sister Barbara Bodichon (1827-1891) was a leading Victorian suffragette .

Leigh Smith studied at Jesus College , Cambridge and graduated with a Masters degree in 1857 . He was now entitled to work as a lawyer , but never practiced this profession. He was mainly concerned with the natural sciences and in 1871 equipped a geographic and oceanographic expedition with the ice-reinforced two-masted sailing ship Samson to the north coast of Svalbard . With the help of the Norwegian ice pilot Andreas Ulve (1833-1896) he managed to navigate the entire north coast of the archipelago up to Cape Leigh Smith in the east of the northeast , which is named after him today . He mapped several small islands and made a series of temperature measurements of the sea water at various depths.

On May 13, 1872, he set out on his second trip to the Arctic. He examined several volcanic craters on Jan Mayen before heading back to the north of Svalbard. The ice conditions were worse than the year before, and the Samson was damaged in the Wijdefjorden , so that Leigh Smith was forced to return to England early. In this way he escaped the fate of 57 Norwegian sealers who were trapped in the ice with their six ships at the exit of the Wijdefjorden in autumn. 17 of them died while trying to winter in Svenskhuset on Cape Thordsen .

In 1873 he chartered the steamship Diana in addition to the Samson . He wanted to circumnavigate Svalbard with both ships and reach the as yet little explored König-Karl-Land , but had to turn back at Cape Platen in the north of Nordostland. By providing the Finnish-Swedish polar explorer Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld , who had spent the winter on the Mosselbukta, with fresh food, he saved the lives of several participants in the Swedish expedition who were suffering from scurvy .

In 1880 Leigh Smith drove again to Jan Mayen and Spitzbergen , this time with the Eira . The ice conditions did not allow any penetration to the north coast this time. So he visited Amsterdamøya and the Magdalenefjorden and on July 31, 1880 passed the southern cape of Svalbard towards the east. On August 14, the Eira reached Franz-Josef-Land , where Leigh Smith first landed on the small May Island . It was the first time since the Austro-Hungarian North Pole expedition that another expedition set foot on an island of Franz Josef Lands. Leigh Smith named and then mapped Northbrook Island with Cape Flora , which was later the starting point for several Arctic expeditions. When the ship left the archipelago, the route of 176 km of previously unknown coast of the islands of McClintock , May, Hooker , Etheridge , Bell , Mabel , Bruce and Northbrook was recorded. The Royal Geographical Society then awarded him the Patron's Gold Medal of 1881 "for important discoveries along the coast of Franz Josef Land".

In 1881 Leigh Smith returned to Franz Josef Land with the Eira . One of the goals was for the missing Jeanette of George Washington DeLong to look for. The Eira came on 21 August off Cape Flora between a strong blowing ice rink and the coastal fast ice and was doing so badly damaged that she sank. However, the crew was able to recover part of the cargo, including four boats, and to save itself on Northbrook Island. She built a makeshift house and added meat from hunted polar bears and walruses to the scarce provisions . In July 1882 the men rowed in the boats 800 km to Novaya Zemlya , where they met the Willem Barents . Leigh Smith returned to England without losing a man during the winter.

At the age of 59, Benjamin Leigh Smith married Charlotte Seller, 30 years his junior. Her son Philip Leigh Smith (1892-1967) married the nuclear physicist Alice Prebil (1907-1987) in 1933 .

Leigh Smith did not publish details of his scientific work. He also did not write travel reports or memoirs . He was largely forgotten when he died in 1913.

In the Franz Josef Land archipelago, Leigh Smith Island and the Leigh Smith Strait between Prince Georg Land and Arthur Island are named after him. He is also the namesake for Cape Leigh Smith and the neighboring glacier Leighbreen on the island of Nordostland (Spitzbergen).

literature

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Arthur G. Credland: Benjamin Leigh Smith: a forgotten pioneer . In: Polar Records 20, 1980, pp. 127-145, doi: 10.1017 / S0032247400003132
  2. ↑ Helena Wojtczak: Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon: The Hastings Connections . In: Notable Women of Victorian Hastings , Hastings Press, 2002. ISBN 1-904109-03-9 (English), online ( Memento of September 30, 2013 in the Internet Archive ).
  3. ↑ Ulf Aasebø, Kjell G. Kjær: Lead poisoning as possible cause of deaths at the Swedish House at Kapp Thordsen, Spitsbergen, winter 1872–3. In: BMJ (Clinical research ed.). Volume 339, 2009, p. B5038, ISSN  1756-1833 . PMID 19965937 . PMC 2789173 (free full text). doi: 10.1136 / bmj.b5038 (English)
  4. ^ Alexander Leslie: The arctic voyages of Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld . Macmillan & Co., London 1879, p. 406
  5. ^ History of the Medals and Awards. Gold medal recipients (PDF; 221 kB) from the Royal Geographical Society website, accessed on February 5, 2019
  6. ^ WH Auden: Philip Leigh-Smith + Alice Prebil PhD on the website "Family Ghosts"
  7. ↑ GP Awetissow: Leigh Smith Benjamin (12.03.1828-04.01.1913) . In: Imena na Karte Rossijskoi Arktiki , Nauka, Sankt Petersburg 2003, ISBN 5-02-025003-1 (English).
personal data
SURNAME Smith, Benjamin Leigh
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British polar explorer
DATE OF BIRTH March 12, 1828
PLACE OF BIRTH Whatlington , Sussex
DATE OF DEATH January 4, 1913
Place of death Hampstead