Smith, Sydney 1771-1845
English clergyman, essayist and wit

Born in Woodford, Essex, he was educated at Winchester and New College, Oxford, of which he became a Fellow. He was ordained (1794) and served at Netheravon, near Amesbury, and Edinburgh. In 1802, with Francis Jeffrey, Francis Horner and Henry Brougham, he started the Edinburgh Review. He lived six years in London, where he made his mark as a preacher, a lecturer on moral philosophy at the Royal Institution (1804-06), and an accomplished speaker, but in 1809 he was 'transferred' to the living of Foston in Yorkshire. In 1828 Lord Lyndhurst presented him to a prebend of Bristol, and the next year enabled him to exchange Foston for Combe-Florey rectory, Somerset. In 1831 Earl Charles Grey appointed him a canon of St Paul's. His writings include 65 articles, collected in 1839 from the Edinburgh Review, Peter Plymley's Letters (1807-08) in favour of Catholic emancipation, Three Letters on the Ecclesiastical Commission (1837-39), and other letters and pamphlets on the ballot, US repudiation, the game laws, prison abuses, and other topics. He is chiefly remembered as the creator of 'Mrs Partington'.

Bibliography: H Pearson, The Smith of Smiths (1940)