Background
The only child of the Review John Smith, rector of Baldock, Hertfordshire, he was born on 3 April 1816, and graduated Bachelor of Laws from Trinity Hall, Cambridge, 1841.
The only child of the Review John Smith, rector of Baldock, Hertfordshire, he was born on 3 April 1816, and graduated Bachelor of Laws from Trinity Hall, Cambridge, 1841.
Trinity Hall.
He entered Lincoln"s Inn on 9 November 1836, where he was called to the bar on 6 May 1841, and mainly practised in the court of chancery. Becoming Queen"s Counsel on 25 February 1861, Smith was chosen a bencher of Lincoln"s Inn on 13 March following, and in September 1865 became county-court judge for Herefordshire and Shropshire (circuit Number 27). He resented being overruled by a superior court, and on one occasion declared his reason for not giving leave to appeal to be that if he was overruled the court would be deciding contrary to law and justice.
This remark earned him a rebuke from the Court of Queen"s Bench.
Smith, who was a Justice of the Peace for Herefordshire, retired from the bench on a pension in February 1879. He died at Clifton on 10 April 1887, and was buried at Baldock.
Smith married in 1844 Mary, second daughter of George Henry Hicks, Doctor of Medicine, of Baldock.