Author: SMEDLEY, Edward
Biography:
SMEDLEY, Edward (1750-1825: ancestry.com)
He was born in Wales on 5 Nov. 1750 and baptised at Holywell, Flintshire, on 28 Nov., the son of Francis Smedley and his wife Jane Price, who had married in 1742. His education was in London and Cambridge, at Westminster School and Trinity College (matric. 1770, BA 1773, Fellow 1775, MA 1776). He was ordained deacon in 1773 and priest in 1776 but began teaching at Westminster School in 1774 where he continued until 1820. On 21 Aug, 1782 he married Hannah Bellas (1754-1824) at St. James Garlickhythe, London, and gave up his college fellowship. They had seven children, including Edward Smedley Jun. (1788-1836), q.v. Smedley held overlapping livings from 1782 on, in various counties—Lincolnshire, Kent, Dorset, Devon—and was identified at the end of his life as the rector of Powderham, Devon, but his primary employment was with the school. He dedicated Erin to its alumni, and the impressive subscription list for the poem, which starts with the Duke of Richmond (Lord Lieutenant of Ireland) and ends with the Archbishop of York, undoubtedly included many of his former students. The much earlier satire Transmigration: a Poem (1778) was published without his name but the attribution is quite credible. It too is in couplets (octosyllabic, not heroic as in Erin) and the content is consistent with Smedley’s role, presenting itself as a defence of religion against such fashionable monsters as Gibbon and Rousseau. It had a brief, scathing review in MR. Smedley died at his home in the Sanctuary, Westminster, on 6 (not 8) Aug. 1825 and was buried on 13 Aug. at St. Margaret’s, Westminster, where his wife, who predeceased him, had been buried on 23 Oct. 1824. (ancestry.com 27 Oct. 2024; findmypast.com 27 Oct. 2024; ACAD; CCEd 27 Oct 2024; DNB [under his son: Smedley, Edward, 1788-1836]; MR 58 [1778], 308; London Packet 8 Aug. 1825) HJ