Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 53.djvu/125

  of Arts on 11 May 1844, a full member on 13 Sept. following, and was elected president on 7 March 1859, holding this post until 1864. He was re-elected in 1868, but held the post for only a few months. He continued to paint up to the time of his death, which occurred suddenly on 20 May 1872.

Smith married, in 1845, Anne, daughter of Robert Titus Wyke, an English artist, residing at Wexford. She was herself a miniature-painter. By her Smith left six sons and four daughters, of whom Stephen Catterson Smith (a member of the Royal Hibernian Academy and practising in Dublin) and Robert Catterson Smith (practising in London) also adopted art as a profession.

[Private information.] 

SMITH, SYDNEY (1771–1845), canon of St. Paul's, born on 3 June 1771 at Woodford, Essex, was the second son of Robert Smith. The latter had lost his father, a London merchant, in early youth. He retired from business, married Maria Olier, daughter of a French refugee, left her at the church door to ‘wander over the world,’ and, after returning, bought, spoilt, and then sold nineteen different places in England, ultimately settling at Bishop's Lydiard, Somerset, where he died in 1827, aged 88. Mrs. Smith was vivacious, modest, and beautiful, resembling Mrs. Siddons. The Smiths had four other children: (known as ‘Bobus’) [q. v.], born in 1770; Cecil in 1772; Courtenay in 1773, and Maria in 1774. The sister, after her mother's death in 1802, took care of her father till her own death in 1816. The boys showed talent at an early age, especially by incessant argumentation. In the interests of fraternal peace the father sent Robert and Cecil to Eton, while Sydney and Courtenay went to Winchester. Sydney, after some time under a Mr. Marsh at Southampton, was admitted upon the foundation at Winchester on 19 July 1782. He was bullied and half starved, and had to write ‘about ten thousand Latin verses,’ which were probably worse than his brother's, and which he at any rate regretted as sheer waste of life and time. He and Courtenay, however, won so many prizes that their schoolfellows sent in a round-robin refusing to compete against him. He was ‘prefect of the hall’ in his last year, and on 5 Feb. 1789 became a scholar of New College, Oxford. At the end of his second year's residence he succeeded to a fellowship, which then brought 100l. a year. On this he supported himself without help from his father, and managed to pay a debt of 30l. for his brother Courtenay. Nothing is known of Smith's Oxford career. He spent some months during this time in Normandy, where he had to join a Jacobin club in order to avoid suspicion, and became a good French scholar. His father thought that he had done enough for his family by supporting ‘Bobus’ during his studies for the bar, and obtaining Indian writerships for Cecil and Courtenay. He told Sydney that he might be ‘a tutor or a parson.’ Sydney, who had wished to go to the bar, was compelled to take orders. He was ordained in 1794 to the curacy of Nether Avon on Salisbury Plain. The squire of the parish was Michael Hicks Beach of Williamstrip Park, Fairford, Gloucestershire. Beach helped Smith in plans for improving the condition of the poor in that secluded parish, and in setting up a Sunday school, then the novelty of the day. He took a great liking to the young curate, and in 1797 made him travelling tutor to his eldest son, Michael, grandfather of Sir M. Hicks Beach, first Viscount St. Aldwyn. A scheme for a sojourn at Weimar was given up on account of the war, and Smith ultimately took his pupil to Edinburgh, which he reached in June 1798 (, p. 39). Many other young men in a similar position were attracted to Edinburgh at this time by the fame of Dugald Stewart and the difficulties of access to the continent. Smith, always the most sociable of men, formed many intimacies with them and with the natives. Though he made endless fun about the incapacity of Scots to take a joke without ‘a surgical operation,’ they at least appreciated the humour of Smith himself. He formed lasting friendships with Jeffrey, Brougham, Francis Horner, Lord Webb Seymour, and others, and before leaving became an original member of the ‘Friday Club’ with Dugald Stewart, Playfair, Alison, and Scott. He was on the most cordial terms with his pupil, and wrote letters full of fun and sense to the parents. In 1800 he went to England to marry Catherine Amelia, daughter of John Pybus of Cheam, Surrey, a friend of his sister's, to whom he had long been engaged. The marriage took place at Cheam on 2 July 1800. The lady's father was dead, and, though her mother approved, her brother Charles, at one time a lord of the admiralty, was indignant, and broke off all relations with his sister. Smith's whole fortune consisted of ‘six small silver teaspoons;’ but his bride had a small dowry, which he settled upon her. Mr. Beach presented the Smiths with a cheque for 750l. Smith gave 100l. to an old lady in distress, and invested the remainder in the funds. He then returned to Edinburgh. His pupil had entered Christ Church, but was replaced by a younger brother. Smith had a second