THE GREAT SMITH FAMILY.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXIV, Issue 4871, 24 January 1903, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE GREAT SMITH FAMILY.

(By W. Holt White.)

Mr Glazebrook, author of ”- ue kj- er " aldry of Smith,” declared it t one huci.y true that a lifetime, and the *urluno of an American billionaire noum not suiiico for an exhaustive lii»toi y ct all the Smiths in all lour quarters of the globe. .. . Mr Compton Rcado does not attempt anything B o supremely heroic in Jim -aat book, "Tho Smith family.” f! I®- 1 ® - losses, to use ins own words, “to review tho great T'abncian family, whether crisped into Smith, “smoothed into Smyth, or smidged into Suiiith. WHY' NUT SMITH LAND ?” It is such a breezy and such nu excellent “review” that one can forgive Uie complacency with which Mr Compton Kendo lays ehiim that ho has produced a popular wort of genealogy.’.' Fy ’ popular” ho means one that “rises superior to class or caste, and presents the lineage of the larmer or tradesman sido by side with that of the nobleman or squire.” Tor genealogy, Mr llinulo goes on to sav, “which should be !ne hana(iiaid of 'history, can never escape troupe the reproach of snobbishness uiurr it broadens downwards.” Mr Compton Kcade, therefore, proposes to free genealogy from this reproach at liio expense of the Smiths —a family so numerous that ho marvels England has not been trimsauuti>d into ‘*ymiLliin.iui-** An American authority is quoted to the effect that “tho history of England is the history of families,'** mill iiieu Mr Compton Kcado affirms that so far as til© Smiths represent a type. England without them would have been very small indeed. ‘lt may bo generally noted,” he says, “as regards the great gens Smith, that, the prime foundations of their opulence have been laid in some ono of fko forms of Protestant dissent. Upon this I make no comment, simply those pages attest the fact. These tradesmen Smiths, whose patient labour and willing self-denial, have so largely assisted in the creation of a national reserve of wealth, have often been a censed of serving Mammon rather than God, while their phase of religion has been denounced as hypocrisy. Consistent lives, philanthropic zeal, nbova' all, tho blessing which has attended them to tho third and fourth gencratiouj afford a rejoinder to any such calumnies.’ Unbiassed evidence this, when one remembers that Mr Read© himself is a. Church of England rector. It is curious, Mr Hondo continues, how tho little letter "y” has proved n liuga differentia. For,, whereas tho '‘Smiths" as a rule have been money-making, the “Smyths" have shown themselves chivalrous and aristocratic. While the Smiths were Roundheads, the Smyths suffered for Tory or Jacobite principles. THE SPELLING OF “SMITH.” Apropos of these variations in tho spelling of tho great patronymic, Mr Compton Reado propounds a theory which should prove of comfort to bath branches of tho family. He hotly combats the notion that the Smyths, . Smythes, and Smijths have assumed _ a’ variation of spelling to lend an ’aristocratic flavour to a homely name. “Nothing,” he declares, “can be further from tho truth. Tho original form was Smyth, just as the modern ‘cider’ is a corruption of the ancient ‘cyder.’ So far frmn tho Smyths having Smythed themselves, I can discover barely one notable instance of tho change from ‘i’ to ‘y/ but I can trace numberless instances of Elizabethan' Smyths having become Victorian Smiths. The roco spoiling of the word Smijth.is apparently duo to tho in■geniousuess of some mediaeval clerk who in writing Smyth took upon himself to' dot both points of tho ‘y/ thus producing ‘Smijth.”’ But what is the origin of tin’s great family? Tho following couplet furnishes the answer:— Whence cometh Smith, be he knight or be he squire. But from the Smith that fprgeth at iho fire? a Not that this is any disgrace. The name is old enough; at any rate. Professor Mahaffy has discovered that a man named Smith lived in the days of Ptolemy 111. B.C. 227; and the occupation from which the name is derived was originally ono of great honour. David was armourer to King bank Vulcan was a person of distinction in Olympus. In the days of Thor, when none but tho. mightiest could wield the hammer, ho was a cynosure; in the heroic days of gallant little ■ Wales he gat upon the right hand of the King. ' But from his high estate he fell, to become a mere mechanic in Norman times, only, however, to blossom into tho gold-storing goldsmith of Queen Anne’s days, from which trade sprang the groat industry of banking. It was, indeed, a gentleman of tho name of Smith, a Tanker of Nottingham, who was the founder of the present noble house of Carrington. AN INTERESTING ROMANCE.

With, tho association of tho names Smith and Carrington there is hound up a highly interesting romance. Briefly, it is this: A certain Sir Michael Carington was standard-bearer to Richard I. A descendant of the same standard-bearer espoused the losing side in the latter stages of the Wars of the Hoses, and had to fly the country. He returned disguised as “Smyth" and settled down, his descendants gradually reassuming the name of Carington. Finally Charles 1. created a Carrington viscouutcy, but the house, however, came to a violent end. Then in 179 G Mr Pitt. In spite of the opposition of George 111., succeeded iu getting Mr SmiUi, banker and member for Nottingham, raised to tho peerage. Mr Smith, a very honest and worthy gentleman, under the impression that he was a descendant of the Caringtou who had been forced to disguise his aristocratic identity beneath, tho name of Smyth, chose the name of Carrington—spelt with two “r’s"—for his title. Later, his son, in perfect good faith, eliminated the stoond “r” in the name of the new title and restored th» ancient Carington monuments in Ashby Folvile Church, with the idea that, they were those of his ancestors. This was a delusion which Mr Augustus Smith, M.P., of Tresco, in his “Stemmata Terraria," rather rudely disposed of, nor does the present holder of the Carrington title—with the second "r” restored—believe ia the theory of the Nottingham banker. A SMITH BANQUET. With the assistance of pedigrees and other matter Mr Beade sets to work to prove tho doctrine of hereditary charac. teristics: “For the ranks of these descendants of primitive iron workers," he says, include scarcely a poet or an idealist, .while, in matters practical they stand pre-eminent. Whatever we are, we were. And whatever we were, wo are, And whatever we are. and whatever we were, Tho same shall we always he. Certainly Mr Iteade’s pedigree ana tte list of celebrities which he gives at tho end of his hook contain the names of many well known men of affairs, not to mention lawyers, sailors, and soldiers. Charitable Smiths without number have proved the old xnoverh, “There is that scattereth hut yet increaseth." From Land’s End to Berwick Bounds institutions in remote towns and obscure villages testify to the good heart of Smith. Perfiaps the most eccentric’ and yet practical bequest was . that of HenrySmith, in 1717, to ( St. Sepulchre’s “to help poor maids for husbands” t Clearly when Gecrrge I. was king a spouse must have been a purchasable commodity, and at a moderate price. Why should there not bo a day set apart every year to celebrate the greatness of the Smiths, after the manner of the Smith banquet which took place in the eighteenth century? At this banquet the guests were Smiths to a man, and the president was one Captain Smith, Governor of Virginia. The cooks wore Smiths, the waiters also, and a Smith said grace. The feast was graced by a poet Smith, whose sole claim to immortality’ rest upon the ode he composed for the occasion, the publisher of which was James Smith. There are. if the “Post Office Directory” is any guide, sufficient Smiths surviving for a similar banquet nowadays.—“ Daily