Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 53.djvu/194

 Spoil.’ He was engaged upon a plate from Faed's ‘First Step’ when he died at Edinburgh on 18 May 1851, at the age of thirty-two.

[Art Journal, 1851; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists.]

 SMYTH, LEICESTER (1829–1891), general, born on 25 Oct. 1829, was seventh son of Richard William Penn Curzon, afterwards Curzon-Howe, first Earl Howe, by his first wife, Harriet, daughter of Robert, sixth earl of Cardigan. He was educated at Eton, and obtained a commission as second lieutenant in the rifle brigade on 29 Nov. 1845. He joined the reserve battalion at Quebec in 1846; became lieutenant on 12 Nov. 1847; returned to England, and went out with the first battalion to the Cape in January 1852. He served in the Kaffir war of that year, and greatly distinguished himself in the action of Berea on 20 Dec. He commanded one of two companies which mounted almost inaccessible heights under fire, and drove a large force of Basutos before them. He was highly praised in despatches by Sir G. Cathcart, and received the medal.

On 23 Feb. 1854 he was appointed aide-de-camp to Lord Raglan, accompanied him to Turkey and the Crimea, and was present at Alma and Inkerman, and throughout the siege of Sebastopol [see ]. He was assistant military secretary from 7 Oct. 1854 to 11 Nov. 1855, first under Lord Raglan, and afterwards under General Simpson. He became captain in his corps on 22 Dec. 1854, was made brevet major on 17 July 1855, and brevet lieutenant-colonel from 8 Sept., having taken home the despatches announcing the fall of Sebastopol. He continued to serve in the Crimea as aide-de-camp to General Codrington to 30 June 1856. He received the Crimean medal with three clasps, the Sardinian and Turkish medals, the legion of honour (fifth class), and the Medjidie (fifth class).

Smyth was assistant military secretary in the Ionian Islands from 23 Nov. 1856 to 23 Aug. 1861. He then rejoined the 1st battalion of the rifle brigade, in which he had become major on 30 April, and served with it at Malta and Gibraltar till 4 Aug. 1865, when he went on half-pay. He had become colonel in the army on 9 Feb. 1861. On 12 Feb. 1866 he married Alicia Maria, eldest daughter and heiress of Robert Smyth, J.P. of Drumcree, co. Westmeath, and in the following November he took the surname of Smyth. He was made C.B. on 13 May 1867. He was military secretary at headquarters in Ireland from 1 July 1865 to 30 June 1870, and deputy quartermaster-general there from 17 July 1872 to 26 Feb. 1874.

On 7 Feb. 1874 he became major-general (being afterwards antedated to 6 March 1868), and on 13 Feb. 1878 lieutenant-general. He had the command of the troops in the western district from 2 April 1877 to 31 March 1880, and at the Cape from 10 Nov. 1880 to 9 Nov. 1885. During part of this time (in 1882–3) he administered the government and acted as high commissioner for South Africa. He was made K.C.M.G. on 1 Feb. 1884, and K.C.B. on 16 Jan. 1886. He was given a reward for distinguished service on 1 April 1885, and promoted general on 18 July in that year. He held the command of the troops in the southern district from 1 May 1889 to 25 Sept. 1890, when he was appointed governor of Gibraltar. But after a few months there he returned to England on sick leave, and died in London on 27 Jan. 1891, leaving no issue. He was buried at Gopsall, Warwickshire.

[Times, 29 Jan. 1891; art. by Sir William Henry Cope in Rifle Brigade Chronicle for 1890; Lodge's Peerage.]

 SMYTH, PATRICK JAMES (1826–1885), Irish politician, was born in 1826, in Dublin, where his father, James Smyth, a native of Cavan, was a prosperous tanner. His mother, Anne, was daughter of Maurice Bruton of Portane, co. Meath. Patrick received his education at Clongoweswood College, where he made the acquaintance of Thomas Francis Meagher [q. v.] The two became fast friends, and in 1844 both joined the Repeal Association. In the cleavage between ‘Old Ireland’ and ‘Young Ireland,’ Smyth, like Meagher, sided with the latter, and became one of the active members of that body. After the failure of the abortive insurrection of 1848 he managed to escape to America disguised as a drover. He supported himself by journalism for some years, becoming prominently identified with the Irish national movement in America. In 1854 he visited Tasmania, and planned and carried out the escape of John Mitchel [q. v.] from his Tasmanian prison (cf., Jail Journal). In 1855 he married Miss Jeanie Myers of Hobart Town, Tasmania, and in 1856 returned to Ireland and began to study for the bar. He was called in 1858, but never practised. For a short time, about 1860, he was proprietor of the ‘Irishman,’ an advanced nationalist newspaper.

Smyth was made a chevalier of the Legion of Honour on 29 Aug. 1871 in recognition of