Kenneth M. Smith, the son of a civil engineer, had three brothers and four sisters. He was his parents' fifth child and youngest son. His parents were English and his ancestors included many engineers, architects, parsons, and civil servants. At age two, he moved with his family to
West Dulwich,
South London, where he grew up. In boyhood, he was interested in natural history and enjoyed collecting butterflies and moths. He was a student at
Dulwich College Preparatory School from 1902 to 1907 and at
Dulwich College from 1907 to 1911. At the
Royal College of Science (now part of
Imperial College London), he matriculated in 1911 and graduated in 1914. He served on the western front from September 1914 to January 1915, when he was invalided out and discharged. He returned to the Royal College of Science, where he did research with Herbert Greenway Newth on the development of collar cavities in
lancelets (also known as amphioxi). At the Royal College of Science, Smith also did research on the antennal sense organs of
Diptera and how feeding by
capsid bugs damages plant tissues. His collaborators include
Roy Markham,
Ralph Wyckoff, N. Xeros, Claude F. Rivers, and
Robley C. Williams. Smith was the first to recognize the
tomato bushy stunt virus, the
turnip yellow mosaic virus, and the
tobacco necrosis virus. In collaboration with
Douglas E. Lea, he did pioneering research on the effects of ionizing radiation on viruses. Smith was primarily responsible for the discovery of the
cytoplasmic polyhedrosis viruses. In 1952 Kurt Jacoby of the
Academic Press selected Kenneth M. Smith and Max A. Lauffer (1914–2012) as editors-in-chief of the book series "Advances in Virology". The first volume of the series was published in 1953. Smith also served on the editorial board of the journal
Parasitology. (1928–2022). At age 77, Smith returned to Cambridge, where he completed the 3rd edition of
A Textbook of Plant Virus Diseases (published in 1972) and two other books. He enjoyed gardening and was an avid
cyclist. In 1923 Smith married Germaine Maria Noël, a French citizen whose father was a lace manufacturer. Smith and his wife had one son, Marcel Travers Smith (b. 1929), who became a barrister. ==Awards and honours==