Anthony Smith (explorer)

Anthony Smith (explorer)

Anthony Smith (born March 30, 1926) is, among other things, a writer, 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.