Background
She was born on 14 November 1815, the daughter of Matthew Franks.
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Ellen Smyly
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Career
She became a prominent philanthropist, fund-raising and setting up homes and schools for the poor. The Smyly Homes and subsequent Smyly Trust are named after her and her family. Touched by the poverty and destitution in the city she began her charity work.
In 1852 she set up her first bible school in Dublin, and by the 1870s had set up a number of schools and residential homes.
She set up a residential home for boys and one for girls, and then 1859 the Birds Nest in Dun Laoghaire for infants, her homes and organisation known as The Smyly Mission Homes and Ragged Schools of Dublin cared for over 1000 children at this time. Smyly was involved in the Irish Church Missionaries Ragged School in the Coombe opened initially in 1853 in Weaver"s Hall, later moved to Newmarket Saint it was opened by Review
Dallas of the ICM. Her homes are believed to have inspired the Dublin-born Doctor Thomas John Barnardo in setting up his homes. In the 1870s, in connection with Annie Macpherson, children were sent to Canada from the Smyly homes in Dublin, similar to arrangements with English and Scottish homes.
In 1917 the Hespeler Home was transferred to the Christian Aid Mission.
She is buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery in Dublin. Her third son Sir William Josiah Smyly (1850-1941), followed in her husband"s medical career and was master of the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin. Her eldest son, Sir Philip Smyly, similar to his father, was a surgeon.
