 He died of heart disease at home in the Sydney suburb of Roseville 

From about 1914 Smith had been informally associated with the organic chemistry department of the University of Sydney, and he continued to work there after his retirement from the museum.In 1922 he was awarded the David Syme prize of the University of Melbourne for original research.He was president of the Royal Society of New South Wales in 1913, of the New South Wales branch of the Australian Chemical Institute in 1922-3, and of the chemistry section of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science at the meeting held in Wellington in 1923.