Author: Bird, Charles Smith
Biography:
BIRD, Charles Smith (1795-1862: ODNB)
The fifth of six children born to William Bird (d 1814) and his wife Jenny Smith (d 1838, not 1802 as given in the ODNB, nor 1839 as in her son’s memoirs), he was born on 28 May 1795 at Union Street in Liverpool and baptised on 21 Sept. at St. Nicholas, Liverpool. His father had been a West Indies merchant but, after being captured during the American War of Independence, he settled for a quieter life as an accountant; he also became very pious and strictly regulated the family’s reading. Charles was educated at Macclesfield School before his father apprenticed him to John Eden, solicitor, in Liverpool on 18 Feb. 1812. After his father’s death he returned to Macclesfield School in preparation for entering Trinity College, Cambridge (matric 1816, scholar 1818, BA 1820, MA 1827). He was ordained in 1823 and in the same year, on 24 June, he married Margaret Wrangham at Bowdon, Cheshire; they had two daughters and three sons. He was curate at Burghfield, Berkshire, until 1844 and supplemented the family income by taking private pupils, including T. B. Macaulay (q.v.). In 1843 he became vicar at Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, and a prebendary of Lincoln Cathedral. In the final three years of his life, 1859-62, he served as Chancellor of Lincoln. He died at the chancery on 9 Nov. 1862; there is a memorial to him in Lincoln Cathedral. He was an ardent protestant and his other publications are mostly sermons or commentaries on theological controversies. For most of his life was also a keen entomologist who strongly objected to killing insects. His son, Claude Smith Bird, edited and published his father’s memoirs as Sketches from the Life of the Rev. Charles Smith Bird (1864). (ODNB 3 May 2023; ancestry.co.uk 3 May 2023; Claude Smith Bird, ed. Sketches of the Life of the Rev. Charles Smith Bird [1864]; Usk Observer 22 Nov. 1862; ACAD; CCEd 3 May 2023)