CANON FOUND SHOT

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 May 1933, Page 11

CANON FOUND SHOT

KNEELING BY HIS BED. BRISTOL, March 24. Canon Ernest Frederick Smith, Rector of Yate, near Bristol, was found shot dead at the Rectory to-day. A revolver, with an empty cartridge-case in one of the chambers, was found at his side. The discovery was made this morning by Miss Ethel Lilian Smith, his sister, who has been staying for some time at the Rectory, after the maid had failed to get a reply to her knocks at the Canon’s door. Canon Smith was kneeling at his bedside. Inspector Hastings, of Chipping Sodbury, was summoned. The inquest was opened this evening, but only formal evidence was taken. There was a pathetic scene at the village school this morning when, before he dismissed the children, the headmaster, Mr E. Brown, called them together, and broke the news to them. “Whatever you hear about this sad affair,” he said, “I want you not to think of that, tyit always try and remember the rector’s cheery smile and kindly words, and what good friends we, all were.” Canon Smith, a widower, aged 62, had been Rector of Yate since 1930. RUINED BY GENEROSITY.

The “London Gazette” announced last night that a receiving order on a debtor’s petition had been made against the Rev. Ernest Frederick Smith.

An intimate friend said that there was no doubt the canon had brought himself to his apparent state of penury by his great generosity to* the poor. He never refused any application for assistance made to him by anyone genuinely in need, and there were scores of poor people in the district who would long be grateful for his unfailing generosity. A Tewkesbury resident said: “He was almost extravagantly generous to the poor in an unostentatious way.” Another friend said he believed Canon Smith had once been a very wealthy man, but his income had declined considerably in recent years. Of his income of £1,195 he paid a pension of £3OO to the late rector.