Henry Smeathman was an English

English people

The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

 naturalist

Naturalist

Naturalist may refer to:* Practitioner of natural history* Conservationist* Advocate of naturalism * Naturalist , autobiography-See also:* The American Naturalist, periodical* Naturalism...

.

In 1771 John Fothergill

John Fothergill (physician)

John Fothergill FRS was an English physician, plant collector, philanthropist and Quaker.- Life and work :...

 along with two other members of the Royal Society

Royal Society

The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...

, Sir Joseph Banks

Joseph Banks

Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, GCB, PRS was an English naturalist, botanist and patron of the natural sciences. He took part in Captain James Cook's first great voyage . Banks is credited with the introduction to the Western world of eucalyptus, acacia, mimosa and the genus named after him,...

 and Marmaduke Tunstall

Marmaduke Tunstall

Marmaduke Tunstall was an English ornithologist and collector. He was the author of Ornithologica Britannica , probably the first British work to use binomial nomenclature....

, sponsored Smeathman to spend four years in and around the Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone , officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea to the north and east, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and southwest. Sierra Leone covers a total area of and has an estimated population between 5.4 and 6.4...

 penininsula studying its natural history

Natural history

Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...

. According to John C. Lettsome

John C. Lettsome

Dr. John Coakley Lettsome was an English physician and philanthropist born on Little Jost Van Dyke in the British Virgin Islands. He was born into one of the early Quaker settlements in the territory, and grew up to be an abolitionist...

, Smeathman married first the daughter of King Tom

King Tom

King Tom was a British Thoroughbred racehorse and a Leading sire in Great Britain & Ireland.-Pedigree:He was a bay horse foaled in 1851, sired by Harkaway and out of the exceptional mare Pocahontas by Glencoe...

 and later the daughter of King James Cleveland

King James Cleveland

King James Cleveland founded the kingdom of Banana Islands in Sierra Leone.He had a son William Cleveland. However when he died his son's succession was contested by Stephen Caulker....

; however on both these occasions his spouse died. Smeathman supplemented this work with a further four years spent in the Caribbean

Caribbean

The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...

Texts

• Smeathman H. (1781) Some account of the termites, which are found in hot Climates. Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. 71: 139-192,
• Smeathman H. (1785?) Elocution and polite literature
• Smeathman H. (1786) Plan of a Settlement to be made near Sierra Leone, on the Grin Coast of Africa