Glenny Smeal


Quick Info

Born
13 February 1890
Ararat, Victoria, Australia
Died
24 February 1974
Wandsworth, London, England

Summary
Glenny Smeal studied at Melbourne University and Imperial College London. After some time in Edinburgh he moved to a post in Statistical Methods and Computation at Leeds.

Biography

Glenny Smeal was an Australian who was educated at the University of Melbourne. He was awarded a B.Sc. by Melbourne in 1911, then travelled to England to study at Imperial College, London. Smeal's studies at Imperial College were financed by a 1851 Exhibition Scholarship from 1912 to 1914.

In 1914 Smeal was appointed as Assistant Lecturer in Mathematics at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. After a break for war service between 1916 and 1918, he returned to his Assistant Lecturer position. In December 1919 he was promoted to Lecturer in Mathematics at Edinburgh (at the same time as Raymond W Brink). Smeal's letter of resignation was put to the Court of Edinburgh University on 25 April 1921. He explained the reason for his resignation; he had been appointed as a Lecturer on Graphics and Computation in the Mathematics Department at Leeds. Edinburgh University appointed George Robinson as Smeal's successor at Edinburgh. From 1925 to 1946 Smeal was a Lecturer in Statistical Method and Computation at the University of Leeds.

Smeal joined the Edinburgh Mathematical Society in December 1914 soon after his appointment as an Assistant at Edinburgh. He remained a member of the Society throughout his career in Leeds.

We note that Smeal corresponded with R A Fisher after moving to Leeds. Fisher's papers contain 24 letters and notes, with tables and copies of printed examination papers in statistics, sent by Smeal to Fisher between December 1925 and March 1928.

Among Smeals' publications are (with Ernest Frederick John Love) The psychrometric formula (1911), (with S Brodetsky) On Graeffe's method for complex roots of algebraic equations (1924) and The equations of the gravitational field in orthogonal coordinates (1926).


References (show)

  1. Biographical Index of Staff and Alumni (University of Edinburgh).

Additional Resources (show)

Other pages about Glenny Smeal:

  1. Papers in the Proceedings and Notes of the EMS

Other websites about Glenny Smeal:

  1. zbMATH entry

Honours (show)

Honours awarded to Glenny Smeal

  1. Lecturer at the EMS

Cross-references (show)


Written by J J O'Connor and E F Robertson
Last Update November 2007