Edgar Albert Smith

Edgar Albert Smith
Portrait of Edgar Albert Smith and his signature.
Born	(1847-11-29)29 November 1847
Died	22 July 1916(1916-07-22) (aged 68) Acton
Nationality	United Kingdom
Fields	zoology, malacology
Institutions	British Museum, now named Natural History Museum
Author abbrev. (zoology)	E. A. Smith

Edgar Albert Smith (29 November 1847 in London – 22 July 1916 in Acton) was a British zoologist, a malacologist.

His father was the Frederick Smith, a well-known entomologist, and Assistant Keeper of Zoology in the British Museum, Bloomsbury. Edgar Albert Smith was educated both at the North London Collegiate School and privately, being well grounded in Latin amongst other subjects, as his excellent diagnoses bear witness.

Smith married in July 1876. Subsequently, he and his wife had four sons and two daughters.

He gave more prominent attention to the fauna of the African Great Lakes and the marine molluscs of South Africa, and also the non-marine mollusk fauna of Borneo and New Guinea.

Smith was employed at the British Museum (now Natural History Museum) as an Assistant Keeper of the Zoological Department for more than forty years, from 1867 to 1913. Edgar Smith's first work was in connection with the celebrated collection of shells made by Hugh Cuming and acquired by the Museum in 1846, at which he worked under Dr. John Edward Gray. From 1871 he was in immediate charge of the collection of molluscs, whilst till 1878 he was also responsible for the rest of the marine invertebrates with the exception of the Crustacea. On the removal of the natural history collections from Bloomsbury to South Kensington, the arrangement of the Molluscan Collection in the then new Natural History Museum was, of course, his peculiar care and was planned by him with a special eye to the convenience of the numerous students and amateur collectors who have not been slow to avail themselves of it. In 1895 Edgar Smith obtained his well-deserved promotion to the post of Assistant Keeper in the Zoological Department.