Aquilla Smith


Aquilla Smith was a highly regarded medical doctor, numismatist and archaeologist. He represented the Irish College of Physicians on the General Medical Council for almost forty years, and was an authority on Irish numismatics.

Personal life

Smith was born in Nenagh, Co. Tipperary. In 1831 he married his first cousin Esther, daughter of George Faucett, and they had thirteen children, including Vincent Arthur Smith.

Medical career

Smith was educated privately in Dublin; he entered Trinity College Dublin in 1823, and went on to study at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, but owing to ill-health, switched to medicine. He was licensed by the King and Queen's College of Physicians in Ireland in 1833, and received the degree of MD honoris causa in 1839. He also edited the Dublin Pharmacopaeia. Smith was King's Professor of Materia Medica and Pharmacy in the School of Physic from 1864 to 1881, and physician-in-ordinary to Sir Patrick Dun's Hospital. He represented the Irish College of Physicians on the General Medical Council from 1851 to 1890.

Contribution to numismatics

Smith had an early interest in numismatics, encouraged by his friend – nearly 500 illustrations in Sainthill's were engraved from drawings made by Smith. Development work in Ireland in the first half of the nineteenth century – the making of canals, reclamation of wasteland, and digging for peat – unearthed an unprecedented amount of finds. Smith, together with numismatist John Lindsay and philologist J. H. Todd, sought to study this material critically, turning from an antiquarian approach to an archaeological approach. Smith put together one of the finest collections of Irish coins and tokens, which he later sold to the Royal Irish Academy.
Smith was admitted as a Member of the Royal Irish Academy in 1835, was elected on to its Council in 1838, and became a Member of the Committee of Antiquities. He was an Honorary Member of the Royal Numismatic Society for over thirty years, and was the second recipient of the medal of the Royal Numismatic Society in 1884.

Publications

Smith published numerous books and contributed articles ton the Numismatic Chronicle, the Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy and the Dublin Journal of Medical Science. His illustrations were published in the Transactions of the Kilkenny Archaeological Society and elsewhere. The following list is a selection of his work: