Appendix E: Biographies

Elijah Smith

Elijah Smith1 (b. Manchester 11 March 1800; bap. St. James Church, Manchester 6 April 1800; d. Penrith, New South Wales 8 October 1870) was the second son of Reverend Thomas Smith (1778 – 24 July 1834) of Gordon House Academy, Kentish Town, Middlesex. He attended Charterhouse (London) but ran away after two months and was thereafter educated privately by his father. He attended in 1817–1818 three Cambridge colleges in quick succession (St. John’s, Trinity, Sidney Sussex). He married on 30 October 1821 in St. Anne’s, Soho, Martha Lucas (b. 19 August 1799; bap. St. Anne’s Soho 22 August 1799; d. Balham 16 November 1885).

He was ordained deacon on 11 March 1827 (London, for the Colonies), described as “literate,” and ordained a priest on 10 June 1828. In 1827, he was appointed chaplain in the colony of New South Wales and stationed in Windsor, at St. Matthew’s Church, where he remained until 1829. In 1829, he returned to England to the curacy of Beckenham, Kent, where he remained until 1832.

He was appointed chaplain to the Russia Company’s factory at Archangel from 1 July 1833, succeeding Rev. J. W. Ellaby, and remained for six years. In addition to his chaplaincy, he taught English at the Russian Gymnasium and the German School in Archangel, but there was some dispute about the relationship of the British Community at Archangel with the Russia Company and thus about whether the former had any claims on the chaplain’s services. On 14 July 1837, he requested permission to visit England because of the “extreme old age of his father-in-law.” In a letter from him dated 8/20 December 1838, presented at the Russia Company’s meeting of 15 January 1839, he resigned his appointment at Archangel, partly on account of his wife’s ill health. He wished to leave Archangel in July 1839, but actually left in mid-June 1839.

He returned to England and was appointed chaplain to the King’s College Hospital in 1840. He was appointed librarian of Archbishop Tenison’s Grammar School at St. Martin-in-the-Fields and headmaster, following the death of his predecessor there in December 1841. No record of his actual appointment is extant, but he was in the post by March 1842. He was also appointed librarian of Tenison’s endowed library in the same building.

On Friday, 27 August 1847, Martha (Lucas) Smith was on board the Cricket, a Thames steamboat that was shattered when its boiler exploded, an accident from which she “miraculously escaped unhurt.”

Through the efforts of Lord Bloomfield, British ambassador at St. Petersburg (see Image 291), Imperial permission was granted to establish an English school in that city under his patronage, exclusively for the young children, both male and female, of English citizens there. A house belonging to Pets on the Fifth Line on Vasilievskii Island was rented for this purpose. Elijah Smith was appointed the first director of the British School in St. Petersburg (also called the St. Petersburg School), which was under the direction of the Russia Company. He resigned from Archbishop Tenison’s Grammar School and left London for Russia on 22 October 1847. At his departure for Russia, there were problems at the Tenison School about missing books and papers, including the Trustees’ minute book.

On 27 November 1847 (OS), the inspector of Private Schools and Pensions, Iosif Somov, wrote to Privy Councilor Mikhail Nikolaevich Musin-Pushkin, head of the St. Petersburg Educational District, that the British School had opened on 6/18 November 1847. It was intended only for young children, both male and female, of English parents, and was under the governance of the director, Rev. Elijah Smith, and the supervision of Rev. Dr. Edward Law (see Image 253). The subjects being taught were religion (zakon bozhii); reading, writing, and grammar of the English, German, and Russian languages; arithmetic; geography; history; penmanship; with private lessons in Latin, French, music, and needlework. The teachers were Rev. E. Smith, Mr. Breitfuss, Mrs. Smith, and Mrs. Knirsh. At the time the report was written, the children in the school, all of whom were boarders, numbered forty-six, of which fifteen were girls. The annual fee was 131 silver rubles. If two or more children came from the same family, their fee was reduced. A list of the children’s names and their fathers’ occupations was attached. Four were orphans. Five were the children of Rev. Elijah and Martha (Lucas) Smith, listed as Dora, Henry, Charles, Adam, and Edward. The parents of the remaining children were mechanics, artisans, engineers, a footman, a courier, and a merchant.

In April 1848, Rev. Dr. Edward Law and James Cattley (see Image 255), secretary of the British School, informed Musin-Pushkin that Rev. Smith, in a letter dated 6 February 1848 (OS), after only some three months as director of the school, had asked the Committee of the British School to release him and his wife from their duties. Their request had been granted with the stipulation that they continue their duties until 26 June 1848 (OS). Their request had actually masked a dismissal for incompetence. The Committee, in the meantime, had invited from England a male and female teacher competent in their profession and with excellent certification. The number of pupils had grown to 80. On 27 September 1848 (OS), Rev. Dr. Law informed Musin-Pushkin that the replacements were a teacher named Mr. Watkins and his wife. The school had moved to the corner of Torgovaia Street and the English Prospekt, where it was located in the house of Essen. According to a report by Inspector Somov on 9 October 1848 (OS), Essen’s house was located in the Narva District.

In the meantime, the Smiths had returned to England. Elijah Smith set out again for Russia in late summer of 1849. Rev. Dr. Law, who was in England that summer and had recruited a Miss Handcock for the British School, made very clear to the Rev. David Laing, honorary secretary of the Governesses’ Benevolent Institution in London, the circumstances of the Smiths’ dismissal in a letter dated 27 August 1849: “I was glad to find that Miss Handcock has started per Camilla, & trust that she may have a prosperous voyage. It was not without reason that you cautioned her against her Revd Compagnon de Voyage, the first appointed Master of our School at St P, but whom, as well as his wife (par nobile) our Committee was obliged to dismiss at the end of 3 months! They caused us serious inconvenience & expence. Mr. M to whose care I confided Miss H. will probably have given her some insight into his character.”

These unflattering comments notwithstanding, in 1850 Smith stood in for Rev. Camidge, the chaplain at Cronstadt, who had been ill and had returned to England. He performed his duties “zealously and conscientiously,” and the Cronstadt residents expressed their wish in May 1850 that he be appointed if there should be a vacancy.

In 1851, he came out to New South Wales again and for two years officiated at St. Leonard’s, North Shore, during the absence of the Rev. W.B. Clarke. Martha (Lucas) Smith came out to New South Wales with six children, on the Euphrates (Capt. Munro), from Plymouth, arriving on 25 May 1852.

Elijah Smith became rector of St. Stephen the Martyr, Penrith, conjoined with St. Mary’s, South Creek, in 1853, remaining in that office until September 1868.

On 5 July 1854, an advertisement appeared in the Sydney newspaper, Empire, announcing that “The Wife of a Clergyman of the Church of England, assisted by her Husband and Eldest Daughter, educates Five Young Ladies, together with her own Family. There are at present Vacancies for Two. Young Ladies under Twelve Years of Age, per annum, 60 Guineas. Further particulars may be obtained on application to the Reverend ELIJAH SMITH, Parsonage, Penrith.”

In March 1857, his parishioners presented him with a gold watch “as a mark of [their] affection.”

In 1854, when Smith visited England, the then vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Rev. Henry MacKenzie, attempted in vain to contact him, and a reference in the Trustees’ minutes for 1861 to “a particular party” involved in the disappearance of various books may also refer to Smith. The person concerned is also spoken of as having “by a long course of subsequent misconduct rendered himself utterly irresponsible.”

Elijah Smith died on 8 October 1870 in Penrith and was buried in Balmain Cemetery. His funeral was “attended by many of the clergy and by his late churchwardens.” He is described in his obituary “as having been a diligent student” since he was young, “being well acquainted with the Hebrew, Greek, Chaldaic, and Syric languages [and] familiar with many of the languages of Northern Europe,” and as having “translated some works from the Swedish, for which he gained great commendation and reward.” An obelisk to him is to be found in the grounds of St. Stephen the Martyr.

Martha (Lucas) Smith returned to England after her husband’s death. She is to be found in the 1881 Census for Balham in South London. She died in Balham on 16 November 1885, aged eighty-six. Her estate amounted to about £614.

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Martha (Lucas) and Elijah Smith had thirteen children. Five did not survive. Their eight surviving children were Cornelius (twin) (b. London 28 January 1830; bap. St. James Clerkenwell 15 April 1830; d. Fiji 9 April 1876); Stephen (twin) (b. London 28 February 1830; bap. St. James Clerkenwell 15 April 1830; d. Fiji 9 July 1877); Ellen Dora Basil (b. 31 October 1833; bap. Archangel 15 February 1833; d. Hove 30 October 1928); Henry (b. Archangel 9 April 1836; bap. Archangel 29 April 1836; d. Hong Kong 25 June 1882); Charles Basil (b. Archangel 8 April 1837; bap. Archangel 17 May 1837; d. Sydney 11 April 1913); Ada[h] Cornelia Ann (b. Archangel 27 December 1838; bap. Archangel 8 January 1839; d. Balham 27 February 1889); Edward Lucas (b. London 16 August 1841; bap. St. Martin-in-the- Fields 13 September 1841; d. Moree, NSW 3 April 1911); Matilda (b. St. Martins, Middlesex 25 April 1844; bap. St. Martin-in-the-Fields 22 May 1844; d. Fiji 9 October 1866).

The twin sons, Stephen and Cornelius, the eldest surviving children, became blacksmiths and engineers. They went to Fiji with the first steam engine taken there. They had a blacksmith shop in Levuka. Stephen is said to have married a Fijian in Levuka. He died diving off a cliff into the ocean. Cornelius was reported as unmarried.

Ellen Dora, the Smiths’ eldest surviving daughter, married in 1835 William Gaskell of Hong Kong.

Charles Basil Smith, Esq., married on 26 January 1859 at Penrith, New South Wales, Jane Duncan, eldest daughter of the late David Malcolm, Esq., of Edinburgh, N.B. His father officiated at the ceremony. Charles Basil was at that time employed by H.M. Customs.

Matilda Smith, their sixth and youngest surviving daughter, became a missionary in Fiji. She died at Ovalau, Fiji Islands, on 9 October 1866 of acute dysentery, at the residence of her brothers, Stephen and Cornelius.

There is very little information about Adah Cornelia Ann Smith. The Adam Smith mentioned in Russian documents as being among the five children of Elijah Smith enrolled at the St. Petersburg School for the Children of English Persons may actually be Adah. Her married name was Masefield. Her husband predeceased her. She left an estate of about £250.

No information has been discovered about Edward Smith.

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