Author: Smart, Alexander
Biography:
SMART, Alexander (b c. 1798-1866: BAM)
He was born at Montrose, and the date usually given is 26 April. However no record of his birth or baptism has been located, and the names of his parents are not known. He was educated at the Montrose Academy before being apprenticed to a watchmaker. Although he completed his training, he did not work at his trade but instead moved first to Edinburgh and then to Dundee where he worked as a compositor for the Dundee Courier. Eventually he returned to Edinburgh and was employed at the University printing office. He was married but the name of his wife is not known for certain. Francis Jeffrey (q.v.) praised his poems and Smart dedicated the enlarged 2nd edition of 1845 to him. His Songs of Labour and Domestic Life, with Rhymes for Little Readers was issued in 1860, some of his songs are in Whistle Binkie (1832), and his prose sketches appeared in Hogg’s Instructor. In the last years of his life, he spent time in the Morningside Asylum suffering from depression and mental illness; he was there in 1861 when the community donated funds to support his wife and an annuity from the Queen was secured for her. He died at the asylum. (BAM; James Grant Wilson, Poets and Poetry of Scotland [1877]; Dundee People’s Courier 19 Jan. 1861; Edinburgh Evening Courant 22 Oct. 1866)