John Smith MP

Banker and politician. Son of Abel Smith, Nottingham banker and MP for Aldborough, St Ives, and St Germans, and the brother of George, Robert, 1st Baron Carrington, and Samuel Smith. Associated with the counterclaim of  the Smiths on Jamaica, St Elizabeth: 535A-C, where the Smiths were mortgagees.

1. Married: (1) Sarah Boone, daughter of Thomas Boone, commissioner of customs. 1 December 1793-23 September 1794, when Sarah died; (2) Mary Tucker, daughter of Lt.-Col. Martin Tucker. 6 January 1800-9 April 1809, when Mary died. Two sons: John Abel Smith (1802–1871), who succeeded him as MP for Midhurst, and Martin Tucker Smith (1803–1890), who became MP for Wycombe; (3) Emma Leigh, daughter of Egerton Leigh of West Hall, High Leigh, Cheshire. 2 daughters. On his death, his real estate was divided between John Abel Smith and Martin Tucker Smith, and left personalty sworn under £250,000. 'One of the City’s most eminent bankers’; he and his brother George were in effective control of the London bank of Smith, Payne and Smith from 1799; he was also on the boards of the family concerns in Derby, Hull and Nottingham. Many of his speeches in Parliament were concerned with  banking and financial matters, his views taking a Whig and Ricardian outlook. He was also concerned with the conditions of the poor and adopted a broadly sympathetic view of Irish issues. He was also pro-Catholic Relief, Parliamentary Reform, the rights of dissenters and Jews, and among the ‘staunch friends’ of the abolition of the slave trade, 1807. In 1830 he was reported to have presented petitions calling for the abolition of slavery from Dissenting congregations. For some more details see political legacies. His commercial activities included being a director of the West India Dock Company (1804-1811, 1817-1824, 1828-1830, 1832-34, 1837-1838), deputy chairman, 1812-1813, and chairman, 1814. He was also a founder and director of the Imperial Insurance Co. (Imperial Fire Insurance Co.) in 1813-31; 1831-1834, 1836-1840. His great-grandson Vivian Hugh Smith was created Baron Bicester in 1938.

2. In 1806, Smith served as a Manager of the newly formed London Institution. He was also closely involved with the establishment and funding of University College London. (See Cultural legacies.]

3. He was presumably the John Smith of Russell Square, banker, who was one of the trustees of Aqualta Vale estate, named in the will of Thomas Hibbert (1761-1807).

4. He was also likely to have been the John Smith partner in Edward and Rene Payne & Co, in 1824, alongside his brother George Smith MP, when the firm was owed £2968 12s 11d by John Gloster Garraway.

Thorne (ed.), House of Commons, 1790-1820, vol. V; Fisher (ed.), House of Commons 1820-1832, vol. 7.

1. https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/member/smith-john-1767-1842

2. Statement by the Council of the University of London, Explanatory of the Nature and Objects of the Institution (London, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green / John Murray, 1827).

3. Caribbeana vol. 4 p. 197 for the will of Thomas Hibbert.

4. Deed from the Grenada Registers of Records of 05/12/1824 between John Gloster Garraway and others, transcribed at http://agenealogyhunt.blogspot.com/2011/05/part-506s-smith-robertson-genealogy.html [accessed 20/11/2020], at pp. 359-60.