From 1920 to 1927, Smith did research at the University of Manchester, where he received his M.Sc. in 1922 and his D.Sc. in 1926. In 1920 the University of Manchester appointed him Senior Lecturer in Entomology. The Ministry of Agriculture appointed him Advisory Officer to the Counties of Lancashire and Cheshire. The University of Manchester assigned Kenneth M. Smith as entomologist and E. Smith-Holmes as mycologist to investigate potato leaf curl disease. In Manchester, Smith did research on Hemipteran feeding behaviour, especially regarding potato plants. Smith's duties in the advisory service acquainted him with practical horticultural problems. He studied onion root flies, cabbage root flies, and parasites associated with various vegetable root flies.[1]
In 1927 Redcliffe Salaman, under the aegis of the Ministry of Agriculture, initiated the Potato Virus Research Station of the School of Agriculture of the University of Cambridge and made several appointments, including Kenneth M. Smith as entomologist. Smith's initial role at the research station was to investigate insect transmission of potato viruses. In 1927 Smith became a postgraduate member, under the supervision of J. Stanley Gardiner, of Downing College, Cambridge. There in 1929 Smith was awarded a Ph.D. In 1939 Salaman, the founding director, retired, and Smith became the director of the Potato Virus Research Station.[1] He changed the name of the station to the "Plant Virus Research Station". In 1947 the Agricultural Research Council took control of the station and changed the name to the "Plant Virus Research Unit".[1] As Smith became more interested in insect viruses, he changed the name of the unit to the "Virus Research Unit". During Smith's tenure as director, the laboratories were gradually modernized and new buildings were added. In 1959, at 67 he retired, under the Agricultural Research Council's age regulations, and Roy Markham became the director of the Virus Research Unit. From 1959 to 1962, Smith stayed on, working full time with his salary paid by a special funding arrangement.[1]
Smith, K. M. (1950). Introduction to the study of viruses. New York: Pitman Publishing Corp. LCCN51002614; ix+106 pages{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
1st edition. London: Chapman and Hall. 1980. LCCN79041116; chapters 1 through 8 & chapters 11 through 14 by K.M. Smith; chapter 9, The replication of viruses, and chapter 10, Virus genetics, contributed by Donald Andrew Ritchie{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
^Arnott, Howard J.; Smith, Kenneth M. (1967). "An ultrastructural study of the development of a granulosis virus in the cells of the moth Plodia interpunctella (HBN.)". Journal of Ultrastructure Research. 21 (3–4): 251–268. doi:10.1016/S0022-5320(67)80095-9. PMID5587787.
"Catalogue of the papers and correspondence of Kenneth Manley Smith (1892-1981), virologist"(PDF). National Cataloguing Unit for the Archives of Contemporary Scientists, University of Bath. CSAC catalogue no. 91/2/83.; compiled by Jeannine Alton and Julia Latham-Jackson Fonds; 151 items circa 1911–1982; deposited in Kenneth Smith Library, Natural Environment Research Council Institute of Virology, Oxford