Andrew Smith (zoologist)

Sir Andrew Smith KCB (3 December 1797 – 11 August 1872) was a Scottish surgeon, explorer, ethnologist and zoologist. He is considered the father of zoology in South Africa having described many species across a wide range of groups in his major work, Illustrations of the Zoology of South Africa.

Smith was born in Hawick, Roxburghshire. He qualified in medicine at Edinburgh University obtaining an M.D. degree in 1819, having joined the Army Medical Services in 1816.

In 1820 he was ordered to the Cape Colony and was sent to Grahamstown to supervise the medical care of European soldiers and soldiers of the Cape Corps. He was appointed the Albany district surgeon in 1822 and started the first free dispensary for indigent patients in South Africa. He led a scientific expedition into the interior and was able to indulge in his interests of natural history and anthropology. On several occasions he was sent by governors on confidential missions to visit Bantu tribes beyond the frontier, such as his trip to Kaffraria in 1824 when he made copious notes on the customs of the Xhosa tribes. In 1825 the Governor of the Cape Colony, Lord Charles Somerset, nominated Smith as the first Superintendent of the South African Museum of natural history in Cape Town. In 1828 Smith was sent to Namaqualand by Lieutenant-Governor of the Eastern District of the Cape of Good Hope Richard Bourke to report on the Bushmen there. As a result, Smith wrote On the origin and history of the Bushmen in 1831. In the same year of 1831 there were rumours of serious unrest in the east, causing Governor Sir Lowry Cole to send Smith to Natal in January 1832. Here he interviewed Dingaan and reported back to Cole, arousing a great deal of interest in the business world of the Cape. It was mainly his report that caused Britain to annex Port Natal in 1844 and turn it into a Crown colony. Similarly in 1833 the reports of traders from North of the Orange River led to an 18-month-long expedition by Andrew to Basutoland, Kuruman, the headquarters of Mzilikazi and as far north as the Magaliesberg, Charles Davidson Bell going along as expedition artist. Smith returned with two of Mzilikazi's izinDuna who forged an alliance with the Cape Colony on behalf of their chief. Smith's Report of the expedition for exploring Central Africa was published in 1836. Except for two short reports that appeared after his return to Cape Town from the interior in 1836, no detailed account of his travels was ever published. Smith's diary however was later edited by Percival R. Kirby and published by the Van Riebeeck Society in 1939-40 as Nos. 20 and 21 of their first series, under the title The Diary of Dr. Andrew Smith, Director of the 'Expedition for Exploring Central Africa', 1834-36. (OCLC 4550857.)

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