H. Warington (Herbert Warington) Smyth

Born in 1867, Herbert Warington Smyth was a British traveller, writer, naval officer, and mining engineer. Reliable reference sources describe him as serving the government of Siam and later holding important posts in the Union of South Africa. He was also the elder son of Sir Warington Wilkinson Smyth, a noted mining expert, and was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge.

Smyth wrote from experience rather than from a distance. His career took him into surveying, mining, administration, and long journeys, and that background shaped books such as Notes of a Journey on the Upper Mekong, Siam and Mast and Sail in Europe and Asia. Those works are still valued for the way they combine travel writing with close observation of working life, waterways, boats, and local trade.

He died in 1943. For readers today, Smyth stands out as an adventurous nonfiction writer whose books preserve a detailed picture of Asian travel and seafaring at the turn of the twentieth century.