 Ancestor Index
- Thomas
Smith/Smyth
- Smyth related
to the maternal line ...
Thomas was the son of William
Smyth
- of Woolsthorpe, near
Belvoir Castle,
(Apothecary of Shrewsbury) and the brother of Corbetta
Smyth,
the common-law wife of Lord William Manners (2nd. son of the 2nd. Duke of
Rutland). It is believed from LDS IGI sources that this
is the Thomas Smith who was baptised on the 24th January,
1693 at St. Chad's in Shrewsbury (Salop.) to parents
William Smith and Mary - his mother not being mentioned
by maiden name. The liklihood of this being his baptismal
date is further strenghened by the
following information gratefully received (15/4/03) from
Alice Blackford, Assistant Keeper of the Archives at Oxford
University, who states:
- "The average age of
students at the time of their matriculation (ie
admission to the University) is fully analysed in
Volume I of 'The University in Society' (ed
Lawrence Stone), in the first chapter entitled
'The Size and Composition of the Oxford Student
Body 1580-1909' by Lawrence Stone. According to
Stone, by the early eighteenth century the median
average age of matriculants was 17 and a half
(p30), compared to an average age of 17 in the
late sixteenth century. In the late sixteenth
century students were matriculating as early as
11 years old; by the late seventeenth century, 14
was the earliest. I can confirm that a Thomas
Smith (or Smyth), son of William, of Shrewsbury,
gentleman, matriculated from Wadham
College on 30 Oct 1709, aged
16."
Bearing in mind the Codicil to his
father's Will (qv William Smyth page) one can almost hear the financial
conversations around the Christmas hearth that year -
amidst the jollity and celebrations - with the young
blade, Tom, 'down' for Christmas too, complaining just
how expensive life was at Oxford and seeking an increase
in his allowance which must have led to this Codicil
being put in place!
Thomas' father was an apothecary -
Wadham's historical records state: "Notable
members of the college in its early years include Robert
Blake, Cromwell's admiral and founder of British
sea-power in the Mediterranean, and Christopher Wren.
Wren attended the meetings of scientifically-inclined
scholars which were held by Warden John Wilkins
(Cromwell's brother-in-law) in the college in the 1650s.
Those attending formed the nucleus of the Royal Society
at its foundation in 1662."
This subsequent information on Thomas
comes (17/4/03) courtesy of Cliff Davies, Archivist at
Wadham College, Oxford:
- "He gained a college
scholarship (Goodridge Exhibition) in 1712 and
1713, but we have no record of his taking a
degree. He had left the college by 1715."
He adds, "The Goodridge was awarded for
general academic proficiency to students already
in residence. That means, of course, classics. It
is impossible to tell for that period how
honestly it was awarded, how much a matter of
patronage and favouritism."
Wadham College appears to
have a close connection with Smyth family - especially in
an ecclesiastical context - which, in the early 1800s,
brings into frame another Thomas Smyth (Thomas Smyth of East Dereham, Norfolk) whose £82,000 Will
(a vast fortune in those days) is an extensive and very
complicated document accompanied by some seven Codicils -
on which probate was granted in 1835. Of the church in
East Dereham, Norfolk, it is said in one historical
account that "The register dates from the year
1538. The living is a vicarage, yearly value £49, in the
gift of the trustees of H. D. Hemsworth esq. and held
since 1860 by the Rev. William Smyth Thorpe B.A. of Wadham College, Oxford,
who resides at Shropham."  East
Dereham 'Smyth' and Norfolk 'Smith'/'Smyth/e' connections
have been hovering on the periphery of the paternal
Smyth/e line investigation of this site for some time
now.
The history of Wadham also
states that the architect chosen for the building of the
College was William Arnold, "well-known for his
work in the West Country (most notably, Montacute House.)".
Montacute was built for Thomas Phelips who married
Elizabeth Smyth of the Ashton Court (Bristol) Smyth family. Additionally, the Smyth
family of Essex (Thomas Smyth, Secretary of State to Edward VI and who later
also served at the Court of Queen Elizabeth) was also
closely associated with the Cromwells - which family had
Smyth as kin and which family was also associated with
Wadham. It is also of interest to note that the arms of
Wadham contain impaled crests, one showing a chevron and
Tudor rose motif identical to the Smyth arms of William
Smyth, Bishop of Lincoln, who died in 1514 and who
founded, with Richard Sutton, Brasenose College, out of
the original Brasenose Hall of which, one Matthew Smyth
(supposedly related to Bishop William) was the
transitional Master.
August
2003 - from Roger Smith - of Corsham, Wiltshire
Roger writes:
"Our Family Bible lists my descent from Thomas
Smith, who was known as the 'Shropshire
Tailor' and was based in Westminster,
where he was married to Sharlot Gray
6.1.1719; they had 12 children born/baptised in
Shrewsbury, Westminster, and Eltham, Kent. Only one son (Nathaniel
Smith b.4/6/1738 at Eltham Palace) and
one daughter (Sharlot Smith
b.21/7/1730 at Shrewsbury) survived to have offspring.
The section of the
Bible detailing his marriage and offspring also contains
an entry written in the same hand:- "Mary Maschamp
January 18th 1717", with no explanation. I've been
unable to find a Maschamp anywhere and believe that 'Muschamp'
is more likely. I wonder if this is apothecary
William Smith's wife, Mary, and the entry records the
date of her death? The family Muschamp are well
documented as being in Ireland, Westminster, and northern
England at about the right time.
We do not have, nor
have I been able to find, any record of the descent of
Thomas Smith, so the Thomas recorded as being the son of
William and in the right place at the right time is a
very interesting development. Family heirlooms bear the
arms of Sir William Smith of Carantock
Abbey, Cornwall who was knighted in
1642, and was a merchant in London.
My father told me that
we were descended from 'Customer Smith'
but he had no idea who Customer Smith was: and that there
was a link to Admiral Thomas Smith
(Tom of Ten Thousand) d.28.8.1762 - of whom we have a
comtemporary sketch - and who could have
been half brother to Thomas the Tailor and was reputed to
be the illegitimate son of Thomas Lyttleton - also of Shropshire.
 Smythe of Wiltshire - The Wiltshire line of Thomas
"Customer" Smythe, celebrated
Elizabethan entrepreneur. His son was Sir Thomas
Smith/Smyth/e. For a biography of this equally
illustrious man, click on his image (left). He was the third but second surviving son of "Customer" Smythe of Westenhanger, Kent by Alice, dau. of Sir
Andrew Judde, Lord Mayor of London.
Site
Notes
Writing in
July 2004, Roger adds these notes - assembled in
association with Gyles Cooper who kindly
offered the following information about his descent: " ...
family tradition has it that we are descended from a Thomas
Smith Cooper, supposedly an
illegitimate son of the Admiral. I looked into this quite
hard 25 years ago, but found no information on the
Admiral's private life, apart from reference to an
unnamed mistress. He left no Will, with letters of
administration being granted to George Grenville, later
Prime Minister."
"Gyles has
information on the Admiral. Much of it agrees
with what I have, but some indicates that the
references I researched years ago were in error,
and some add new light. The publication,
"At 12 Mr. Byng Was Shot" by Dudley
Pope, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1962
(page 21) records that Admiral Thomas Smith
was the illegitimate son of a Mrs. Smith,
owner of a boarding house and Sir Thomas
Lyttleton, who retired from
Parliament in 1741. (He died in 1751 and was of
Hagley Hall in Worcestershire).
This rules out my
suggestion that Mary Muschamp may have been the
wife of William Smith, Apothecary of Shrewsbury
and hence mother of Thomas the Clothier. There is
no indication of where Mrs. Smith owned
a lodging house, but London, Shrewsbury and
perhaps Worcestershire are favourites.
Presumably, she was a widow and this leads to the
question as to whether the Clothier was her
legitimate or natural son: if one assumes that he
married at 21 he would have been born 1698.
Gyles's records put the Admiral's birth as
1706/7; mine as 1707. The fact that
Lyttleton associated with her and fully supported
their son seems to indicate that she was a lady
of some standing. I recently downloaded a
copy of the will of Sir William
Smith of Crantock and there may be useful
information to come from that."
Roger's
original information continues ...
Nathaniel (mentioned
above) was a sculptor of some repute, and married,
firstly, Elizabeth Tarr
and by her was the father of John Thomas
Smith - the antiquarian, author
and artist ("Rainy Day Smith") whose daughter
(name not known) married a Charles Smith
[British Museum occasional papers]. My
descent is through Nathaniel's second marriage to Jane
Micheal. and I have a full account of
this through to our great grand children."
Research on Roger
Smith's theory is continuing. This is a recent (November
2003) gleaning which may - or may not - be associated:
1794: Nathaniel Smith
(1730-1794), MP, governor EICo, son of Nathaniel Smith
and Anne Gould; he married Hester Dance. See Sir Lewis
Namier and John Brooke, The History of
Parliament: The House of Commons, 1754-1790.
[Two Vols.] London, Parliament Trust of Her Majesty's
Stationery Office, London, 1964., Vol. 3, p. 448.
He was a posthumous
son of Capt. Nathaniel Smith of St Giles, Cripplegate,
and spent 12 years in East India Company naval service,
rising to commander and captain. He retired in 1771 and
was active as an EICo director till he died in May 1794.
Namier notes him as chairman of EICo 1783-1785 and
1788-1789. He was deputy-chair of EICo and an MP in 1786.
File
9a - 1775-1800 - Merchants and Bankers Listings
Additional
Site Notes
Sir
William Smith of Carantock Abbey - The
"Abbey" tag suggests that Sir
William Smith was another Smyth/e-Smith
family beneficiary to property made available as
a result of the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
See also William
Smithdike - assistant to Henry VIII and the
reputed progenitor of the major Irish Smyth
lines. He was granted a
lease on Rosedale Abbey in Yorkshire by the
powerful Neville family who had acquired it at
the time of the Dissolution.
 Carantock Abbey -
"Carantoc founded a religious settlement at
Crantock across the river Gannel from Newquay,
and then, according to Capgrave, was led by his
guardian angel to journey to Ireland to assist
St. Patrick in the conversion of that island. In
Ireland he cured one of his disciples, Tenenan,
of his leprosy by giving him a hot bath. His
ministry did not end in Ireland for he is
honoured in Brittany as the founder saint of
Carantec and the neighbouring parish of
Tegarantec, which was probably originally Tref
Carantoc. St.Carantoc died in the middle of the
sixth century, and Bath Abbey, which held the
living of Carhampton, kept his festival on May
16th. The Welsh, Cornish, Irish and Breton
calendars commemorate him at this time." (Bowen,
Baring Gould and Fisher, Farmer, John). 
Thomas
Smith - (Tom of Ten Thousand) - was born
in England and joined the Royal Navy becoming a
junior lieutenant on the Royal Oak in
1727. In 1730 he was promoted captain of the Success
and served the navy on the home station as well
as the Mediterranean from 1732 to 1740. He was
captain of the Romney from 1740 to 1742,
where his duty was to protect the Newfoundland
fisheries.He was appointed governor of
Newfoundland in 1741 and served a single year. He
served again as governor and commander-in-chief
in 1743. After serving in Newfoundland, he
continued his naval career. He was promoted to
Rear-Admiral of the Red in 1747 and Vice-Admiral
of the White in 1748. After the promotion to
Vice-Admiral of the Blue in 1758, he retired from
naval service. He died in August, 1762. Might
this be the mysterious 'naval' father of Henry
Walton Smith? See inset (left) picture
of W. H. Smith, 1st. Viscount Hambledon - the son
of Henry Walton Smith.
John
Thomas Smith - ("Rainy Day
Smith") - is perhaps best known for his
edition of the "Cries of London",
and "The Antiquities of Westminster",
the first English book to be illustrated with
lithographed plates. He was a good friend of
William Blake and, later in his career, was
Keeper of prints and drawings in the British
Museum. 
Blake's father was a well-to-do
London hosier and William was born in 1758. He
had been dead some two years when John Thomas
Smith wrote, "I believe it has been
invariably the custom of every age, whenever a
man has been found to depart from the usual mode
of thinking, to consider him of deranged
intellect, and not infrequently stark staring mad
…". In this same 1829 treatise on
Blake he declared, "Bearing this stigma
of eccentricity, William Blake, with most
extraordinary zeal, commenced his efforts in art
under the roof of number 28, Broad St., in which
house he was born ... ".
Roger
Smith, writing in
September 2003, notes: "I recall reading
one of his [John Thomas Smith's] books
years ago, in which he refers to Admiral Thomas
Smith as his great uncle. I think his daughter,
who married Charles Smith, may have been Jane
b.13/4/1794 in Edmonton (London). His other
daughter, name unknown, seems to have married
Johann George Paul Fischer. John Thomas's son,
name unknown, died June 1833 - Cape of Good Hope."
Given the early life of Henry
Walton Smith and his involvement with
fine collections, this may be a starting point
for drawing together a number of possible
connections. Henry Walton Smith was disowned by his
family when he married Anna Eastaugh, a servant
girl from Suffolk. His paternal line has yet to
be identified; however, he was closely connected
with the actor, David Garrick and with the artist
Joshua Reynolds. Born in about 1735, Henry Walton
Smith was also connected to the Rogers and to the
Cotton families and with Devon/Cornwall. His
father was a naval officer. Little more than that
is known about his ancestry. This is the line of
the W. H. Smith enterprise (bookesellers etc.)
and thus of the Viscounts Hambleden.
It is stated that Henry Walton
Smith arrived in London at
some point towards the latter part of the 18th
century 'and became an assistant to Charles
Rogers '. Charles
Rogers was principally an art collector who
worked under William Townson of the Custom House,
London, being befriended and greatly influenced
by him and, in return, helping him to add to the
collection - much of which he eventually
inherited from Townson anyway. (Woodes Rogers and
his family were painted by Joshua
Reynolds before Rogers became Governor
of the Bahamas for the second and last time.)
When Charles Rogers himself died, in 1784,
his nephew, William Cotton (the
first of three by that name) inherited this vast
collection of artistic and literary works. Much
of it was gradually sold off but what remains of
it - still extensive - survives today, at
Plymouth's 'Cottonian'.
The
Cottonian Collection
"The
earliest part of the collection, the core
of the library, was formed by Robert
Townson (1640-1707) who bequeathed it to
his son William. He added some prints and
drawings, as well as more books, before
leaving it to his friend and protégé
Charles Rogers (1711-1784). Rogers built
on this modest assemblage over the main
decades of the 18th century, between the
1730s and 80s. During these years his
wealth, social contacts and interest in
the Pursuit allowed him to amass a quite
remarkable collection reflecting his
interests, taste and patronage."
Rogers was something of a
self-taught man; Henry Walton Smith, as his
assistant, would have been - if Smith/Smyth
traits run true - the organiser! It also suggests
that Henry's family moved in the kind of circles
enjoyed by Rogers and - before him, Townson; they
were of a similar 'mindset' in the pursuit of
collecting and much interested in antiquities.
When the Royal Academy of Arts
was instituted in 1768, Joshua Reynolds was
elected as the first President and, in the following year, he
was knighted. Eventually, in 1784, he was
appointed as principal
royal portrait painter to King George III, succeeding Allan Ramsay. In that same
year, he exhibited one of the portraits for which
he has come to be best appreciated - that of the
actress, Sarah Siddons, as the Tragic Muse. Some five years after
his appointment as the King's painter, his
eyesight began to fail (he was already quite
deaf) and he was forced to give up painting
altogether. He never
married, and his house in Leicester Fields.was
kept for him by his sister Frances. He died in 1792 - in the
same year as Henry Walton Smith - whom he must
have known quite well.
Thomas
Smith (Smith of Derby) - c.1720-1767 - was one of the first
professional landscape artists in England. He was
the father of John Raphael Smith (1752-1812)
who painted minitures and became mezzotint
engraver to the Prince of Wales in 1784. 
An 18th Century writer, Edward
Edwards, wrote of Thomas Smith that he "attained
his art by his own industry" and also
that he was one of the first artists who explored
and displayed the beautiful scenes of his native
country. He travelled about a great deal in the
Midlands and the North (as far as the Lake
District) painting famous views and also country
houses whose owners were opening them to
respectable visitors and wanted pictures of their
property.
Until the invention of
photography, paintings, drawings and prints were
the only available means of recording the
landscape, hence Smith's popularity. The image
adjacent shows his painting of "The
Cascades at Matlock". Such pictures
provide pictorial evidence of the changes in the
landscape over time, and serve as a record of the
tastes and appearances of people and places in
history. Thomas Smith is important for having
painted the countryside in the early days of the
Industrial Revolution and also for being one of
the first to paint scenes of wild country with
rocks, waterfalls and ruins that became very
fashionable later in the century. In his pictures
he recorded the activities of tourists, strolling
about, picnicking, admiring the view and,
especially, fishing, because Derbyshire was
becoming very attractive to travellers at that
time. He probably supplied the illustrations for
the 1750 edition of the most famous fishing book
of all time, Izaak Walton's
Compleat Angler . Smith's pictures were very
popular and were often engraved for reproduction
as prints. These were really the holiday
souvenirs of the time.
Chatsworth
House (home
of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire) web site
information states that Thomas Smith had pictures
of his displayed in three of the very first
annual exhibitions of the Society of Artists
(which became The Royal Academy) in London. The
first exhibition was held in 1760 in the Strand.
People could get in free but two years later an
admission charge of one shilling (5p) was
started. The next year, two much more famous
artists than Smith were responsible for hanging
the exhibits. They were Richard Wilson, also a
landscape painter, and Benjamin West, an American
painter of historical scenes and events. No doubt
to his astonishment, West had to put up with an
unusual way of going about things by his partner.
They both disliked the work that was being sent
in for display, because when they had finished
placing all the exhibits Wilson is reported to
have said, "This will never do. We shall
lose the little credit we have, for the public
will never stand such a shower of chalk and
brickdust!" So he sent someone out to get
Indian Ink and Spanish liquorice. He then
dissolved them in water and washed many of the
pictures in that! When this was finished, he
exclaimed, "There, it's as good as
asphaltum, with this advantage that if the
artists don't like it they can wash it off when
they get the pictures home!" (Source: Sidney
Hutchison, The History of the Royal Academy,
1768-1968, Chapman & Hall, 1968.)
Thomas
Smith's picture of Chatsworth "is hung
alongside two other paintings of Chatsworth, and
together they offer a detailed narrative about
the evolution of Chatsworth from Tudor house to
Classical mansion. They also show how the house's
setting has been altered to create a romantic
backdrop to the buildings. Without Smith's
picture we would know much less about
Chatsworth's appearance in the early 18th
Century."
Smith of
Derby "made a good living out of his art
and was able to buy a six-roomed house in
Bridge-gate, Derby, with a coachhouse and stable,
described at the time as fit for a gentleman's
family" He died at Hotwells in Bristol
and was buried in Derby. Related or not, it would
seem impossible that Thomas Smith of Derby could
have operated at this time without mixing in
similar circles as Henry Walton Smith and John
Thomas Smith.
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Roger adds - (September 2003)
Admiral Thomas
Smith - The sketch we have of this Thomas is
very faded and is in an old frame. It shows him as a
young lad, presumably in the rig of a midshipman of that
time.
Sir William Smith -
The Lancaster Herald, in 1993, confirmed to me that the
arms of Sir William Smith of Carantock Abbey are
emblazoned as follows:- "Azure a saltire between
four martlets argent." I think it means a
plain blue shield with an X and a silver martlet in each
segment of the x.. We have this etched on some items of
our property, but not in colour: Also, we have a crest - a hand holding a hammer
of some sort, on other
pieces of property but this crest is not recorded by the
College of Arms. I am trying to get a look at Burke's
Armory. The Complete Baronetage states that this William
was "presumably a descendant of the family of
Smith, of Tregonnack". This family in the
Herald's Visitation of Cornwall in 1620, bore the same
arms, which are of medieval origin and a crest of "a
griffin's head semy of roundles on a chapeau"
- established in about 1573. The Lancaster
Herald wrote that Sir William left two daughters and
heirs. The Smyth family of Tregonnack is also recorded
for a number of generations thus:-
Visitation of
Cornwall, 1620. - Smyth of Tregonake St.
Germayns - Robert Smyth m. Joanne,
dau. of Robert Killigrew. Their son Thomas
Smyth m.(1) Wilmot, dau.of
Roger Tremayne and had a son John
Smyth of Tregonock and he (Thomas
Smyth) married (2) Mary, dau.
of Sir.....Lenthall of Latchford,
Oxfordshire and had a son Robert Smyth of Trewynt,
in Blysland. Arms:- B. a saltire arg. between 4 martlets
or.
The
mention of Smith/Smythe and the hammer motif in
the family arms, is reflected in the adjacent set
of arms to be found at St. John's Whitchurch in
Buckinghamshire - see image right - also may be
used as a link to that page.
Sir William Smith of
Crantock (modern spelling) is recorded by tradition as
being a cadet of the house of Tregonnack. The hammer in
the crest of this line may perhaps be a reference to
mining - in which Customer Smythe's decendants had
Cornish interests - and Sir William may have been
connected to this.
The letter
I received on 6th April 1993 from the Lancaster
Herald at The College of Arms, stated "He was a
merchant in London who named himself of Carantock Abbey
having purchased an estate there which either he or his
children sold. No memorial of him remaning in
Cornwall. He was a merchant in London & left 2
daurs. & heirs."
I have these notes from
the Corsham Civic Society - discussing present street
names: "Hatton Way - Sir Christopher Hatton was
a favourite of Elizabeth 1. He owned the site of Corsham
Court and later sold it to Thomas Smyth." And,
relating to a tour of the Court - hosted by James
Methuen-Campbell - the present incumbent:- "The
restored remains of the Medieval House, pulled down in
the 1500s, are next on the tour, followed by the Dovecote
which, although difficult to date accurately, is thought
to predate the Tudor House."
Corbetta Smyth
Shropshire Smythe
Staffordshire Smythe
Cheshire Smythe
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