Background
Robert was born on August 14, 1732 in Worstead, Norfolk, England, United Kingdom, the second child of Stephen Smith, a grazier, and Hannah (Press) Smith.
(This selected edition of twenty-seven sermons delivered b...)
This selected edition of twenty-seven sermons delivered by Bishop Robert Smith (1732-1801) from the pulpit of Charleston's oldest Episcopal church gives voice to an influential clergyman and his rhetoric in support of a colonial rebellion. Wilbanks has edited Smith's previously unpublished sermons, which were written, delivered, and sometimes repeated during a forty-year career. In his analysis of these sermons, Wilbanks illustrates how a theology of community, civic duty, and national piety led to Smith's advocacy of American independence. Wilbanks suggests that Smith articulated a southern perspective that constituted a radically distinctive justification for the American Revolution, a view drawn from Smith's notion of a righteous community. Contrary to Puritan teachings of individual rights and responsibilities, which often served as a validation for revolution, Smith's call for righteous community also justified the War of Independence.
https://www.amazon.com/American-Revolution-Righteous-Community-Selected/dp/1570036659?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1570036659
Robert was born on August 14, 1732 in Worstead, Norfolk, England, United Kingdom, the second child of Stephen Smith, a grazier, and Hannah (Press) Smith.
At the age of sixteen, having spent seven years at the Norwich grammar school under Timothy Bullimer, he was admitted sizar at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, matriculating in 1750. He received his bachelor's degree in 1754.
On March 7, 1756, he was ordered deacon, and on December 21 was ordained priest by the Bishop of Ely. The next year, upon the recommendation of William Mason, M. P. , he was appointed assistant minister of St. Philip's Church in Charlestown, South Carolina, and arrived there November 3, 1757. He became rector in 1759.
His position at St. Philip's also gave him importance, and in the years before the Revolution he acquired great influence. He was early an intense patriot and in November 1775 was elected to the second provincial congress, where he failed to take his seat, but became chaplain of an artillery company. Later he was chaplain of the 1th South Carolina Regiment, and also of the Continental Hospital in Charlestown. Still later, he was chaplain general of the Southern department of the Continental Army.
During the siege of Charlestown he served as a private soldier, and so active was he in the American cause that his name headed the list, published December 30, 1780, of those whose estates were sequestered under Cornwallis' proclamation of September 6.
He was imprisoned in Charlestown and later banished to Philadelphia. After a stay of some months there he went to Maryland, where he took charge of St. Paul's Parish, Queen Anne's County.
He returned to Charleston in 1783. Smith was active in many good works of peace. As rector of St. Philip's he had charge of a successful school for negroes. After his return from Maryland he founded a school which in 1790 became the College of Charleston, of which he was principal until 1798. He did not attend a convention in South Carolina, but was present in 1786 and 1789. There was much opposition in the state to the selection of a bishop, but finally, in 1795, after the first minister chosen had declined, Smith was elected and was consecrated at Christ Church, Philadelphia, in September. He continued to be rector of St. Philip's until his death in 1801.
(This selected edition of twenty-seven sermons delivered b...)
Quotations: When offered immunity if he would support the British cause, he replied, "Rather would I be hanged by the King of England than go off and hang myself in shame and despair like Judas" (letter in private hands).
Quotes from others about the person
According to Publications of the Southern History Association, (1898), he was "a very sociable & polite clergyman, a prodigious worker, and a powerful speaker. "
On July 9, 1758, he married Elizabeth, the daughter of John Pagett. Ten years later, in the hope of restoring her broken health, he carried her to England, where they remained for eighteen months. She died June 8, 1771, however, some five months after their return to America. Early in 1774 he married Sarah, the daughter of Thomas Shubrick. She died July 7, 1779, and some years later he married Anna Maria (Tilghman) Goldsborough, daughter of Col. Edward Tilghman of Wye, and the widow of Charles Goldsborough, by whom she had a son Charles. She died December 6, 1792. By his second wife Smith had one daughter, and by his third, two sons.