Background
Smith was born in Dundee, Scotland, and educated at the University College of Dundee, where he obtained a BSc in botany and zoology, and at the University of Munich, where he obtained a PhD.
Smith was born in Dundee, Scotland, and educated at the University College of Dundee, where he obtained a BSc in botany and zoology, and at the University of Munich, where he obtained a PhD.
At Munich, Smith studied plant pathology and translated Carl von Tubeuf's Pflanzenkrankheiten.
After graduating from university, Smith taught at the Morgan Academy in Dundee until 1891, when he took a demonstrator's position at the University of Edinburgh working with Isaac Bayley Balfour. From 1892 to 1893 he served as lecturer in agriculture for the County of Forfar. In 1893 he began doctoral work at Munich and in 1894 he returned to the University of Edinburgh, where he lectured in plant physiology.
In 1897 he took up a position at the University of Leeds, until he moved to the Edinburgh and East of Scotland College of Agriculture in 1908, where he spent the remainder of his career.
He was a member of the first Board of Trustees of Mississippi Normal College, now known as the University of Southern Mississippi, and was elected first president of that institution during the period of its construction.