Smyth, Robert Brough (1830 - 1889)

Summary

Brough Smyth was Government Meteorologist, Melbourne 1855-1858, Secretary of the Victorian Mines Department 1860-1876 and Director of the Bendigo School of Mines 1883-1887. He was also the Secretary to the Victorian Board of Science, and the Central Board appointed to watch over the interests of aborigines.

Details

Chronology

1846 - 1852

Career position - Clerk, Consett Iron Works, Durham, England

1852

Life event - Migrated to Melbourne, Victoria

1853 - 1855

Career position - Draftsman, (rising to acting chief draftsman), Victorian Government Survey [under Andrew Clarke]

1855 - 1859

Career position - Government meteorologist, Melbourne

1858 - 1860

Career position - Secretary, Victorian Board of Science

1860- -

Career position - Honorary Secretary, Board for the Protection of Aborigines Honorary Secretary, Board for the Protection of Aborigines

1860 - 1876

Career position - Secretary, Victorian Mines Department

1863

Career position - Secretary, Royal Society of Victoria

7 Apr 1868

Career event - Associate (AssocInstCE), Institution of Civil Engineers, London

1878 - 1882

Career position - Mining engineer, Madras, India

1883 - 1887

Career position - Director, Bendigo School of Mines, Victoria

Related entries

Archival resources

State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection

• Robert Brough Smyth - Records, 1820 - 1889, MS 8781; State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection. Details

Published resources

Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation Exhibitions

• Collins, David, Chemistry in 19th Australia - Select Bibliography, An exhibition of the Encyclopedia circa 2005 with assistance from Ailie Smith and Gavan McCarthy., eScholarship Research Centre (original publisher), Melbourne, 2009, https://eoas.info/exhibitions/ciab/ciab_ALL.html. Details

Books

• Murphy, Sean, The Cranbourne meteorite (North Melbourne: Australian Scholarly publishing, 2023), 164 pp. Details
• Smyth, R. Brough, The gold fields and mineral districts of Victoria (Melbourne: Government Printer, 1869), 644 pp. Details
• Smyth, R. Brough, The Aborigines of Victoria : with notes relating to the habits of the natives of other parts of Australia and Tasmania [Vol.1], vol. 1 of 2 (Melbourne: Government Printer, 1878), i-lxxii, 1-483 pp, https://openlibrary.org/books/OL22877095M/. Details
• Smyth, R. Brough [also Chauncy, Philip; Bidley, William; Le Souef, Albert A. C. ; Howitt, Alfred W.; Davis, John Moore; Locke, William; Greeves, Augustus F. A.; G. B. Halford.], The Aborigines of Victoria : with notes realating to the habits of the natives of other parts of Australia and Tasmania [Vol.2], vol. 2 of 2 (Melbourne: Government Printer, 1878), i-vi, 1-455 pp, https://openlibrary.org/books/OL23539869M/. Details
• Smyth, Robert Brough, The Gold Fields and Mineral Districts of Victoria (Carlton, Vic.: Queensberry Hill Press, 1980), 644 pp. Details

Book Sections

• Hoare, Michael, 'Smyth, Robert Brough (1830-1889)' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 6: 1851 - 1890 R - Z, Bede Nairn, ed. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1976), pp. 161-163. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A060184b.htm. Details

Conference Papers

• Darragh, Tom, 'Robert Brough Smyth: a Mystery Solved', in The History of Geology in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century; the Story in Australia, and in Victoria, from Selwyn and McCoy to Gregory - 1853 to 1903 edited by Pierson, R. R. (Melbourne: Earth Sciences History Group, GSA Inc., 2007), pp. 26-9.. Details

Gazette Articles

• Secretary for Mines, etc. [Smyth, Robert Brough] (Melbourne: Victorian Government, 1860), 2501 pp. https://gazette.slv.vic.gov.au/view.cgi?year=1860&class=general&page_num=2501. Details

Journal Articles

• Darragh, Thomas A., 'Robert Brough Smyth: His Early Years as Revealed by his Correspondence with Adam Sedgwick', Historical Records of Australian Science, 13 (1) (2000), 19-42. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR0001310019. Details
• Hoare, M. E., ''The Half-Mad Bureaucrat' Robert Brough Smyth (1830-1889)', Records of the Australian Academy of Science, 2 (4) (1974), 25-40. http://www.publish.csiro.au/paper/HR9740240025.htm. Details
• Smyth, R. Brough, 'On the Influence of the Physical Character of a Country on the Climate : being a Letter to the President', Transactions of the Philosophical Society of Victoria, 1 (1855), 203-221, https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/107768#page/237/mode/1up. Details
• Smyth, R. Brough, 'On the comparitive value and durability of the Building Materials in use in Melbourne', Transactions of the Philosophical Society of Victoria, 1 (1855), 24-33, https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/107768#page/44/mode/1up. Details
• Smyth, R. Brough, 'Phenomena of Hailstorms in Victoria', Transactions of the Philosophical Institute of Victoria, 1 (1857), 135-138, https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/43761972#page/157/mode/1up. Details
• Smyth, R. Brough, 'On a New Mineral from McIvor', Transactions of the Philosophical Institute of Victoria, 2 (1858), 17-19, https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/108467#page/39/mode/1up. Details
• Smyth, R. Brough, 'On the construction of an instrument for measuring the Dew Point', Transactions of the Philosophical Institute of Victoria, 2 (1858), 61-62, illustrated, https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/108467#page/88/mode/1up. Details
• Smyth, R. Brough, 'Ozone', The Australian Medical Journal, 4 (1859), 1-4. Details
• Smyth, R. Brough, 'On the Unexplored Districts of Victoria', Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria, 6 (1865), 62-67, https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/33872191#page/172/mode/1up. Details
• Turnbull, Paul, 'Australian museums, Aboriginal skeletal remains, and the imagining of human evolutionary history', Museum & society, 13 (1) (2015), 72-87. https://doi.org/10.29311/mas.v13i1.318. Pages 75. Details

Parlamentary papers

• Board of Science, Victoria, First annual report (Melbourne: Victorian Government, 1859), 8 pp, https://pov.ent.sirsidynix.net.au/client/en_GB/parl_paper/search/detailnonmodal/ent:$002f$002fSD_ILS$002f0$002fSD_ILS:63516/one. Details
• Board of Science, Victoria, Second annual report (Melbourne: Victorian Government, 1860), 40 pp, https://pov.ent.sirsidynix.net.au/client/en_GB/parl_paper/search/detailnonmodal/ent:$002f$002fSD_ILS$002f0$002fSD_ILS:64124/one. Details

Parliamentary papers

• Board on Claims to Reward for the Discovery of the Building Stone, Building stone (Melbourne: John Ferres, Government Printer, 1858), 9 pp. https://pov.ent.sirsidynix.net.au/client/en_GB/parl_paper/search/detailnonmodal/ent:$002f$002fSD_ILS$002f0$002fSD_ILS:26038/one. Details
• Office of the Central Board for the Protection of Aborigines, Aborigines: return to an order of the Legislative Assembly, dated 18th August 1868 (Melbourne: John Ferres, Government Printer, 1868), 5 pp, https://pov.ent.sirsidynix.net.au/client/en_GB/parl_paper/search/detailnonmodal/ent:$002f$002fSD_ILS$002f0$002fSD_ILS:66098/one. Details

Resources

• VIAF - Virtual International Authority File, OCLC, https://viaf.org/viaf/37018234. Details
• Wikidata, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q7342394. Details
• Institution of Civil Engineers, London, 'Application: 2406, 1868', Civil Engineer Membership Forms, 1818-1930, ancestry.com, https://www.ancestry.com.au/search/collections/3585/. Details
• 'Smyth, Robert Brough (18300218-18891008)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-593784. Details

Resource Sections

• 'Smyth, Robert Brough', in Physics in Australia to 1945, R.W. Home, with the assistance of Paula J. Needham, Australian Science Archives Project, June 1995, http://www.asap.unimelb.edu.au/bsparcs/physics/P000789p.htm. Details

See also

• Board of Science [Establishment and initial Board members] (Melbourne: Victorian Government, 1858), 1065 pp, https://gazette.slv.vic.gov.au/view.cgi?year=1858&class=general&page_num=1065. Details
• Federation and Meteorology, 2001, http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/fam/index_s.html. Details
• Science and the making of Victoria, with Royal Society of Victoria, 2001, http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/smv/index_s.html. Details
• Hoffenberg, Peter H., A science of our own: exhibitions and the rise of Australian public science (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018), 206 pp. Details
• Serle, Percival, Dictionary of Australian biography (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1949). Details