Skip to main content

Author: Smedley, Edward

Biography:

SMEDLEY, Edward (1788-1836: ODNB)

The second son of Hannah Bellas (1754-1824) of Willey, Sussex, and her husband the Rev. Edward Smedley (1750-1825), of London, he was born on 12 Sept. 1788 in the Sanctuary, Westminster Abbey. He was a student at Westminster School where his father was an usher; he matriculated at his father’s college, Trinity, Cambridge, in May 1805 (BA 1809, MA 1812). He won prizes. Elected fellow of Sidney Sussex College in 1812, he gave up the fellowship upon marrying, on 8 Jan. 1816, Mary Hume of Wandsworth Common. Together they had five children. Ordained deacon in the Church of England in 1811 and priest in 1812, he was preacher at St James’s Chapel, Tottenham Court Road, London (1812-31); clerk in orders at St James’s, Westminster (1815-19); and, from about 1817, Evening Lecturer at St Giles’s, Camberwell. He was prebendary of Lincoln from 1829. A High Churchman who frequently contributed to the British Critic, he gave early praise to Felicia Hemans (q.v.). In 1822, he took over the editorship of Encyclopædia Metropolitana from his friend William Rowe Lyall. Lyall nominated him, in 1822, to the High Church dining club Nobody’s Friends. He contributed as well to the Annual Register and the Penny-Cyclopaedia. Though his father had been Whig, he became a “moderate Tory.” For the conservative QR, he reviewed Thomas Campbell’s (q.v.) Theodric. He wrote prolifically for pay because by 1826 he had become deaf, the result of a neurological condition that eventually caused his death. His disability stunted his advancement in the church and, consequently, his income. He authored a history of the French Huguenots and several, now unreadable, religious poems, notably Religio Clerici (1818), a didactic and sometimes satirical answer to a question he poses in a preface: “Why are you a Church-of-England Christian?”. Smedley died 29 June 1836 at Dulwich where he is buried. In 1837, Baldwin and Cradock published Poems by the late Rev. Edward Smedley, A.M.; with a selection from his correspondence. It includes a tedious, 100-page memoir and a subscription list that documents his extensive circle of acquaintance. Also in 1837, for the benefit of Smedley’s widow, his particular friend, Spenser Compton, edited The Tribute, published by John Murray. The collection is notable because it includes a contribution by Alfred Tennyson (q.v.). (NLS, John Murray Archive; ACAD 3 Mar. 2023; ODNB 3 Mar. 2023; CCEd 3 Mar. 2023; Members of ‘The Club of Nobody's Friends'” [1885]; Barker and Stenning, eds., Record of Old Westminsters [1928]) JC

 

 

 

Other Names:

  • Edward Smedley, Jr.
 

Books written (16):

London: James Cawthorn, 1812
London/ Cambridge: John Murray/ J. Deighton and Sons, 1814
2nd edn. London/ Cambridge: John Murray/ J. Deighton and Sons, 1814
London/ Cambridge: John Murray/ John Deighton and Sons, 1814
2nd edn. London/ Cambridge: John Murray/ John Deighton and Son, 1814
London/ Cambridge: John Murray/ John Deighton and Sons, 1815
Cambridge/ London: J. Deighton and Sons/ J. Hatchard, 1818
2nd edn. London: John Murray, 1818
London: John Murray, 1819
London: J. Mawman, and C. and J. Rivington, 1827
London: John Murray, 1828
London: Baldwin and Cradock, 1829