Background
Payne Smith was born in Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, on 7 November 1818, the only son and second of four children of Robert Smith, a land agent, and his wife, Esther Argles Payne, of Leggsheath, Surrey.
Payne Smith was born in Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, on 7 November 1818, the only son and second of four children of Robert Smith, a land agent, and his wife, Esther Argles Payne, of Leggsheath, Surrey.
He attended Chipping Campden grammar school and was taught Hebrew by his eldest sister, Esther.
In 1837 he obtained an exhibition at Pembroke College, Oxford to study classics. In 1841 he graduated with second-class honours. In the same year he became a fellow of Pembroke and was ordained a deacon, and became a priest a year later.
Payne Smith died at his deanery on 31 March 1895 and was buried on 3 April in Street Martin"s churchyard, Canterbury.
Payne Smith was reticent towards the Oxford Movement and Tractarian and Ritualist developments.
He gave to 1869 Bampton Lectures at Oxford and from 1870 until 1885 he was a member of the Old Testament Revision Committee (the whole duration of the Committee"s existence).
