CLERGYMAN'S SAD END

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21496, 20 May 1933, Page 3 (Supplement)

CLERGYMAN'S SAD END

SHOT CANON'S BANKRUPTCY The London Gazette recently announced that a receiving order under the Bankruptcy Acts had been made on his own petition, against Canon Ernest Frederick Smith, who was found Eihot dead, kneeling by his bedside in the rectory at Yate, near Bristol. A revolver was near him. Canon Smith, who was a widower, aged £>2, had been rector of Yate since 1930. Formerly he was vicar of iewkesbury. A friend said that there was no doubt that he 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 m need, and there were scores of poor people; in the district who would long be grateful for his unfailing generosity. The same story was told at Tewkesburv a He was almost extravagantly generous to the poor in an unostenta?iniis wav." said a resident. A close friend living in Gloucestershire, said that he believed Canon Smith had once been a very wealthy man, 'but his income had declined considerably in recent years.