Richard Smith

1707 - 1776  (69 years)

• Name	Richard Smith  [1, 2]
  Born	1707	of Islington, London, England   [3, 4]
  Gender	Male
  Died	13 Oct 1776  [4]
  Person ID	I16993	Ancestry of PNH, TNH, and others | Ancestor of DDB
  Last Modified	2 Sep 2020

  
  

  Family 1	Elizabeth,   d. Bef Jul 1766
  Children	+ 1. Mary Smith,   b. 12 Dec 1740,   d. Aug 1775  (Age 34 years)   2. Benjamin Smith,   b. 21 Jul 1742,   d. 26 Feb 1806, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland, England  (Age 63 years)
  Last Modified	2 Sep 2020
  Family ID	F10361	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family 2	Lucy Towers,   d. 1795
  Married	Abt 15 Mar 1767  [4, 5]
  Last Modified	2 Sep 2020
  Family ID	F17773	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Notes

  From Wikipedia (accessed 2 Sep 2020): Richard Smith was an English merchant in the West Indies trade, and director of the East India Company. Smith was born in Whitehaven, then in Cumberland, or Appleby, Westmorland. He was a merchant and slave owner in the West Indies. When he moved back from Barbados, where he was a plantation owner, to London, he brought five enslaved people with him. Smith's business assets included a warehouse in Cheapside, and Lys Farm near Bramdean in Hampshire, once used for cattle-breeding. Having bought the farm in 1769, he began to transform it into a gentlemanly estate, Brockwood Park, building a country house; a wing was added to the house in 1774, and at the end of his life it was a family home. It is now the site of the Krishnamurti Centre, as Brockwood Park. Smith's will left a number of enslaved persons, by name, to his grandchildren. The drafting of the will was intended to keep a substantial estate in trust for Smith's grandchildren; but the effect was otherwise. It was the subject of Chancery proceedings until 1813, when the estate was much diminished. This case has been suggested as one of the inspirations for Jarndyce and Jarndyce in Charles Dickens's Bleak House. Benjamin Smith, the younger son, bought sugar plantations in 1781, to provide income from the trust arising from the will. Covered by the will was the advowson for St Mary's Church, Islington, which Richard Smith had purchased in 1771.

  
  

• Sources

  [S2179] E. H. Martin, "Swinnerton-Dyer Family." Notes and Queries for Somerset and Dorset 10:307; 10:341, 1907; 11:24, 1908. [S90] Stirnet.com, by Peter Barns-Graham., place only. [S2176] Burke's Peerage, Baronetage, and Knightage, 107th edition, ed. Charles Mosley. Wilmington, Delaware: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd., 2003. [S4313] The Collected Letters of Charlotte Smith ed. Judith Phillips Stanton. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2003. [S76] The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2004-ongoing., year only.