A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature/Smith, William Robertson

by John William Cousin

Smith, William Robertson (1846-1894). -- Theologian and Semitic scholar, s. of the Free Church minister of Keig, Aberdeenshire, studied for the ministry of that Church. In 1870 he was appointed Prof. of Hebrew, etc., in its coll. at Aberdeen, a position which he had to resign on account of his advanced critical views. He became joint ed. of The Encyclopædia Britannica, and in 1883 Prof. of Arabic at Camb. S. was a man of brilliant and versatile talents, a mathematician as well as a scholar, somewhat uncompromising and aggressive in the exposition and defence of his views.page 349 His works include The Old Testament in the Jewish Church (1881), and The Religion of the Semites (1889).