The Smith of Smiths

Two hundred years ago, on June 3rd, 1771, Mrs Robert Smith, of Woodford, Essex, gave birth to a son. The birth of yet another Smith was not perhaps remarkable, but this one was christened Sydney. Macaulay was to call him ‘the Smith of Smiths’.

His father was a man of roving disposition, who had sold his share of the family business and spent a number of years travelling round the world in search of adventure. Sydney’s mother was the daughter of a wine merchant from Languedoc, whose family had been driven to England by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Sydney declared that he owed a great deal of his natural gaiety to this infusion of French blood.

In 1782 he was sent to Winchester College. He was very unhappy there, and in later years he never missed a chance of pointing out the faults of public-school life. For all his criticism, however, he sent his own two sons to public schools; and he did well enough himself to become Prefect of Hall: the most responsible position at Winchester. He also managed to be elected a Scholar of New College, Oxford, in 1789. Three years later, he took his degree, and found himself compelled to choose a profession.