Anthony Smith
Encyclopedia
Anthony Smith is, among other things, an explorer, author
and former Tomorrow's World
television presenter. He is perhaps best known for his bestselling work The Body (originally published in 1968 and later renamed The Human Body), which has sold over 800,000 copies worldwide and tied in with a BBC
television series, known in America by the name Intimate Universe: The Human Body
. The series aired in 1998 and was presented by Professor
Robert Winston
.
Smith read zoology
at Balliol College, Oxford
, became a pilot
in the RAF and went on to write as a science
correspondent
for the Daily Telegraph. He also worked extensively in both television and radio, writing for several natural history programmes.
Smith's first expedition was to Persia, exploring the Qanat
underground irrigation tunnels. This expedition was documented in the book Blind White Fish in Persia; a species
of fish
which he discovered is named after him.
In 1962, he led "The Sunday Telegraph Balloon Safari" expedition (with Douglas Botting
), flying a hot air balloon
from Zanzibar
to East Africa
, and then across the Ngorongoro crater (Documented in Throw out two Hands). The following year he became the first Briton to cross the Alps
in a balloon. Smith now resides in London
, England
, but has continued both travelling and writing well into his later years. In 2000 he wrote The Weather: The truth about the health of our planet and in 2003 wrote The Lost Lady of the Amazon: The Story of Isabela Godin and Her Epic Journey, detailing the experiences of Jean Godin des Odonais.
In the late 1990s, Smith was instrumental in securing an exhibit for the Imperial War Museum
, London. The "Jolly Boat", a small lifeboat launched from the SS Anglo Saxon on 21 August 1940 after its sinking by the German auxiliary cruiser Widder
, carried the surviving members of the ship's crew West across the Atlantic Ocean
for sixty-eight days, before finally landing in Eleuthera
. By the time the Jolly Boat made landfall, only two the seven survivors of the attack were still alive.
For the next fifty years, the boat was kept by the Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut
. Smith, personally interested in the story of the lifeboat, secured its return in 1997, after which it was restored for display in 1998 at the Imperial War Museum, London
.
in the Canary Islands
in a custom-built raft, with the intention of crossing the Atlantic Ocean
within three months, eventually arriving in Eleuthera
. The raft, which was given the name An-Tiki in reference to the Kon-Tiki raft used by Norwegian
explorer and writer Thor Heyerdahl
in his 1947 expedition from South America to the Polynesian islands, was assembled during November and December 2010. Its superstructure consists of a small hut within which the crew share two bunks, while the hull was fashioned from plastic gas pipes which carried either supplies for ballast
or air for buoyancy. Its facilities were designed to be modest and it was equipped with a gas stove
for cooking and telegraph poles which would act as mast
s, as well as solar panels, a wind generator and a foot pump which would power its electronic devices, as the crew plan to use computers and digital cameras to communicate with the outside world and document their journey. According to an article Smith wrote for the Daily Telegraph, in its final form the An-tiki measured approximately 40 feet by 18 feet. It's hut is approximately 20 feet by 7 feet.
Smith had been interested in crossing the Atlantic by raft as far back as 1952, when he devised a plan to begin somewhere in the Canary Islands and to rely on fresh fish as his source of food. "I was a student then and I ran out of money." He told the Telegraph. "But the idea has always niggled me." The voyage began as a concise advert listed in the Telegraph in 2006, which simply read "Fancy rafting across the Atlantic? Famous traveller requires 3 crew. Must be OAP. Serious adventurers only." From his applications, Smith recruited Robin Batchelor, also a professional balloonist, David Hildred, a yacht master and civil engineer, and experienced seaman Andy Bainbridge. The crew set sail with the intention of raising money for the clean water charity WaterAid
and completed their journey successfully.
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
and former Tomorrow's World
Tomorrow's World
Tomorrow's World was a long-running BBC television series, showcasing new developments in the world of science and technology. First aired on 7 July 1965 on BBC1, it ran for 38 years until it was cancelled at the beginning of 2003.- Content :...
television presenter. He is perhaps best known for his bestselling work The Body (originally published in 1968 and later renamed The Human Body), which has sold over 800,000 copies worldwide and tied in with a BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
television series, known in America by the name Intimate Universe: The Human Body
The Human Body (TV series)
The Human Body is a seven part documentary series, first shown on 20 May 1998 on BBC One and presented by medical scientist Robert Winston. A co-production between the BBC and The Learning Channel, the series looks at the mechanics and emotions of the human body from birth to death.The series was...
. The series aired in 1998 and was presented by Professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
Robert Winston
Robert Winston
Robert Maurice Lipson Winston, Baron Winston is a British professor, medical doctor, scientist, television presenter and politician.-Early life and education :...
.
Smith read zoology
Zoology
Zoology |zoölogy]]), is the branch of biology that relates to the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct...
at Balliol College, Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
, became a pilot
Aviator
An aviator is a person who flies an aircraft. The first recorded use of the term was in 1887, as a variation of 'aviation', from the Latin avis , coined in 1863 by G. de la Landelle in Aviation Ou Navigation Aérienne...
in the RAF and went on to write as a science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
correspondent
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
for the Daily Telegraph. He also worked extensively in both television and radio, writing for several natural history programmes.
Smith's first expedition was to Persia, exploring the Qanat
Qanat
A qanāt is a water management system used to provide a reliable supply of water for human settlements and irrigation in hot, arid and semi-arid climates...
underground irrigation tunnels. This expedition was documented in the book Blind White Fish in Persia; a species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
of fish
Fish
Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...
which he discovered is named after him.
In 1962, he led "The Sunday Telegraph Balloon Safari" expedition (with Douglas Botting
Douglas Botting
Douglas Botting is an English explorer, author, biographer and TV presenter and producer. He wrote biographies of naturalists Gavin Maxwell and Gerald Durrell . He was the inspiration behind and writer of the BBC comedy show The Black Safari, a role reversal comedy show with Africans touring England...
), flying a hot air balloon
Balloon
A balloon is an inflatable flexible bag filled with a gas, such as helium, hydrogen, nitrous oxide, oxygen, or air. Modern balloons can be made from materials such as rubber, latex, polychloroprene, or a nylon fabric, while some early balloons were made of dried animal bladders, such as the pig...
from Zanzibar
Zanzibar
Zanzibar ,Persian: زنگبار, from suffix bār: "coast" and Zangi: "bruin" ; is a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania, in East Africa. It comprises the Zanzibar Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of numerous small islands and two large ones: Unguja , and Pemba...
to East Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
, and then across the Ngorongoro crater (Documented in Throw out two Hands). The following year he became the first Briton to cross the Alps
Alps
The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....
in a balloon. Smith now resides in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, but has continued both travelling and writing well into his later years. In 2000 he wrote The Weather: The truth about the health of our planet and in 2003 wrote The Lost Lady of the Amazon: The Story of Isabela Godin and Her Epic Journey, detailing the experiences of Jean Godin des Odonais.
In the late 1990s, Smith was instrumental in securing an exhibit for the Imperial War Museum
Imperial War Museum
Imperial War Museum is a British national museum organisation with branches at five locations in England, three of which are in London. The museum was founded during the First World War in 1917 and intended as a record of the war effort and sacrifice of Britain and her Empire...
, London. The "Jolly Boat", a small lifeboat launched from the SS Anglo Saxon on 21 August 1940 after its sinking by the German auxiliary cruiser Widder
German auxiliary cruiser Widder
Widder was an auxiliary cruiser of the German Navy that was used as a merchant raider in the Second World War.Her Kriegsmarine designation was Schiff 21, to the Royal Navy she was Raider D....
, carried the surviving members of the ship's crew West across the Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
for sixty-eight days, before finally landing in Eleuthera
Eleuthera
Eleuthera is an island in The Bahamas, lying 50 miles east of Nassau. It is very long and thin—110 miles long and in places little more than a mile wide. According to the 2000 Census, the population of Eleuthera is approximately 8,000...
. By the time the Jolly Boat made landfall, only two the seven survivors of the attack were still alive.
For the next fifty years, the boat was kept by the Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
. Smith, personally interested in the story of the lifeboat, secured its return in 1997, after which it was restored for display in 1998 at the Imperial War Museum, London
Imperial War Museum
Imperial War Museum is a British national museum organisation with branches at five locations in England, three of which are in London. The museum was founded during the First World War in 1917 and intended as a record of the war effort and sacrifice of Britain and her Empire...
.
Crossing the Atlantic by raft
On 30 January 2011, Smith and a crew of three volunteers departed from La GomeraLa Gomera
La Gomera is one of Spain's Canary Islands, located in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa. In area, it is the second-smallest of the seven main islands of this group.- Political organization :...
in the Canary Islands
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands , also known as the Canaries , is a Spanish archipelago located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the border between Morocco and the Western Sahara. The Canaries are a Spanish autonomous community and an outermost region of the European Union...
in a custom-built raft, with the intention of crossing the Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
within three months, eventually arriving in Eleuthera
Eleuthera
Eleuthera is an island in The Bahamas, lying 50 miles east of Nassau. It is very long and thin—110 miles long and in places little more than a mile wide. According to the 2000 Census, the population of Eleuthera is approximately 8,000...
. The raft, which was given the name An-Tiki in reference to the Kon-Tiki raft used by Norwegian
Norwegians
Norwegians constitute both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway. They share a common culture and speak the Norwegian language. Norwegian people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in United States, Canada and Brazil.-History:Towards the end of the 3rd...
explorer and writer Thor Heyerdahl
Thor Heyerdahl
Thor Heyerdahl was a Norwegian ethnographer and adventurer with a background in zoology and geography. He became notable for his Kon-Tiki expedition, in which he sailed by raft from South America to the Tuamotu Islands...
in his 1947 expedition from South America to the Polynesian islands, was assembled during November and December 2010. Its superstructure consists of a small hut within which the crew share two bunks, while the hull was fashioned from plastic gas pipes which carried either supplies for ballast
Sailing ballast
Ballast is used in sailboats to provide moment to resist the lateral forces on the sail. Insufficiently ballasted boats will tend to tip, or heel, excessively in high winds. Too much heel may result in the boat capsizing. If a sailing vessel should need to voyage without cargo then ballast of...
or air for buoyancy. Its facilities were designed to be modest and it was equipped with a gas stove
Stove
A stove is an enclosed heated space. The term is commonly taken to mean an enclosed space in which fuel is burned to provide heating, either to heat the space in which the stove is situated or to heat the stove itself, and items placed on it...
for cooking and telegraph poles which would act as mast
Mast
-Engineering:* Mast , a pole that holds a sail on sailing ships and boats, or radar and telecommunication antennas on modern warships* Guyed mast, a type of tall structure supported by guy-wires...
s, as well as solar panels, a wind generator and a foot pump which would power its electronic devices, as the crew plan to use computers and digital cameras to communicate with the outside world and document their journey. According to an article Smith wrote for the Daily Telegraph, in its final form the An-tiki measured approximately 40 feet by 18 feet. It's hut is approximately 20 feet by 7 feet.
Smith had been interested in crossing the Atlantic by raft as far back as 1952, when he devised a plan to begin somewhere in the Canary Islands and to rely on fresh fish as his source of food. "I was a student then and I ran out of money." He told the Telegraph. "But the idea has always niggled me." The voyage began as a concise advert listed in the Telegraph in 2006, which simply read "Fancy rafting across the Atlantic? Famous traveller requires 3 crew. Must be OAP. Serious adventurers only." From his applications, Smith recruited Robin Batchelor, also a professional balloonist, David Hildred, a yacht master and civil engineer, and experienced seaman Andy Bainbridge. The crew set sail with the intention of raising money for the clean water charity WaterAid
WaterAid
WaterAid is an international non-profit organisation set up as a response to the UN International Drinking Water & Sanitation decade . WaterAid is dedicated to helping people escape the poverty and disease caused by living without safe water and sanitation. It is based in London, England and was...
and completed their journey successfully.