Kenneth Manley Smith

Kenneth Manley Smith (13 November 1892, Helensburgh, Scotland – 11 June 1981) was a British entomologist and plant pathologist, known for his pioneering research on both insect viruses and plant viruses.

Biography
Kenneth M. Smith, the son of a civil engineer, had three brothers and four sisters. He was his parents' fifth child and youngest son. His parents were English and his ancestors included many engineers, architects, parsons, and civil servants. At age two, he moved with his family to West Dulwich, South London, where he grew up. In boyhood, he was interested in natural history and enjoyed collecting butterflies and moths. He was a student at Dulwich College Preparatory School from 1902 to 1907 and at Dulwich College from 1907 to 1911. At the Royal College of Science (now part of Imperial College London), he matriculated in 1911 and graduated in 1914. Soon after graduation, he enlisted as a private in the 14th Battalion of the London Scottish Regiment. He served on the western front from September 1914 to January 1915, when he was invalided out and discharged. He returned to the Royal College of Science, where he did research with Herbert Greenway Newth on the development of collar cavities in lancelets (also known as amphioxi). At the Royal College of Science, Smith also did research on the antennal sense organs of Diptera and how feeding by capsid bugs damages plant tissues.

From 1920 to 1927, Smith did research at the University of Manchester, where he received his M.Sc. in 1922 and his D.Sc. in 1926. In 1920 the University of Manchester appointed him Senior Lecturer in Entomology. The Ministry of Agriculture appointed him Advisory Officer to the Counties of Lancashire and Cheshire. The University of Manchester assigned Kenneth M. Smith as entomologist and E. Smith-Holmes as mycologist to investigate potato leaf curl disease. In Manchester, Smith did research on Hemipteran feeding behaviour, especially regarding potato plants. Smith's duties in the advisory service acquainted him with practical horticultural problems. He studied onion root flies, cabbage root flies, and parasites associated with various vegetable root flies.

In 1927 Redcliffe Salaman, under the aegis of the Ministry of Agriculture, initiated the Potato Virus Research Station of the School of Agriculture of the University of Cambridge and made several appointments, including Kenneth M. Smith as entomologist. Smith's initial role at the research station was to investigate insect transmission of potato viruses. In 1927 Smith became a postgraduate member, under the supervision of J. Stanley Gardiner, of Downing College, Cambridge. There in 1929 Smith was awarded a Ph.D. In 1939 Salaman, the founding director, retired, and Smith became the director of the Potato Virus Research Station. He changed the name of the station to the "Plant Virus Research Station". In 1947 the Agricultural Research Council took control of the station and changed the name to the "Plant Virus Research Unit". As Smith became more interested in insect viruses, he changed the name of the unit to the "Virus Research Unit". During Smith's tenure as director, the laboratories were gradually modernized and new buildings were added. In 1959, at 67 he retired, under the Agricultural Research Council's age regulations, and Roy Markham became the director of the Virus Research Unit. From 1959 to 1962, Smith stayed on, working full time with his salary paid by a special funding arrangement.

Smith wrote a remarkable number of papers and books — both technical and popular. His collaborators include Roy Markham, Ralph Wyckoff, N. Xeros,  Claude F. Rivers, and Robley C. Williams. Smith was the first to recognize the tomato bushy stunt virus, the turnip yellow mosaic virus, and the tobacco necrosis virus. In collaboration with Douglas E. Lea, he did pioneering research on the effects of ionizing radiation on viruses. Smith was primarily responsible for the discovery of the cytoplasmic polyhedrosis viruses.

In 1952 Kurt Jacoby of the Academic Press selected Kenneth M. Smith and Max A. Lauffer (1914–2012) as editors-in-chief of the book series "Advances in Virology". The first volume of the series was published in 1953. Smith also served on the editorial board of the journal Parasitology.

For two years from 1962 to 1964 Smith worked as a visiting professor in the University of Pittsburgh's biophysics department with Max A. Lauffer. For four and a half years from 1964 to 1969 Smith worked as a visiting professor at the Cell Research Institute at the University of Texas, Austin. There he worked with Howard Joseph Arnott. (1928–2022).

At age 77, Smith returned to Cambridge, where he completed the 3rd edition of A Textbook of Plant Virus Diseases (published in 1972) and two other books. He enjoyed gardening and was an avid cyclist.

In 1923 Smith married Germaine Maria Noël, a French citizen whose father was a lace manufacturer. Smith and his wife had one son, Marcel Travers Smith (b. 1929), who became a barrister.

Awards and honours
Smith was elected in 1932 a Fellow of the Royal Society. He delivered in 1949 the Masters Memorial Lecture of the Royal Horticultural Society and in 1953 the Leeuwenhoek Lecture of the Royal Society. He was made CBE in 1956. For his work at the University of Texas, Austin, he was made an Honorary Citizen of Texas.

Books

 * (pbk reprint of 1977 6th edition)