Author: Smith, Egerton
Biography:
SMITH, Egerton (1774-1841: ancestry.co.uk)
He was born on 13 June 1774 and baptised at St. Peter’s, Liverpool, on 11 July, the son of Egerton Smith, schoolmaster, printer, and mathematician, and Ann Prescott, who had married in Preston in 1766. After his father’s death in 1788 he was sent to James Ashburner, printer and stationer of Kendal, Westmorland, before returning to the family firm now run by his mother. He later established the Liverpool Mercury (1811) and the weekly literary miscellany, The Kaleidoscope (1818), which attracted the work of a number of local writers. He also published an array of children’s books. He married Margaret Wood on 27 Feb. 1819 at Christ Church, Liverpool. They had four daughters. He and his wife were widely respected for their civic involvement and philanthropy. He was instrumental in setting up the Mechanics’ Institute (est. 1823) and the Stranger’s Friend Society (1817) for the relief of the poor, originally established by John Wesley. He was also the author of Description of the Liverpool Night Asylum for the Houseless Poor (1839) which had been set up to solve the problem of homeless begging. He had a life-long interest in animal welfare and at a meeting in his house in 1809, attended by William Roscoe and Edward Rushton (qq.v.), Samuel Reid, and other Liverpool luminaries, they proposed a Society for the Suppression of Wanton Cruelty to Animals(“Elysium,” 100-1) and much later he supported the Liverpool Auxiliary Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (est. 1840). The work listed here, The Melange, contains “The Elysium of Animals: A Dream” which was published separately in 1836. He died on 18 Nov. 1841 and was buried at the Necropolis cemetery, Liverpool. His wife, Margaret, continued to run his business interests after his death, including the Liverpool Mercury. She died in 1866 at Neuchâtel, Switzerland. They left an estate in excess of £40,000. (ancestry.co.uk 21 Jan. 2024; findmypast.co.uk 21 Jan. 2024; Liverpool Mercury 5 Mar. 1819, 2 Feb. 1827, 26 Nov. 1841, 16 Jan. 1866, 22 Dec. 1890; John Gardner, The Grain of Mustard Seed: An Account of…the Stranger’s Friend Society founded in 1785 (1829); Michael Perkin, “Egerton Smith and the early 19th-Century Book Trade in Liverpool” in Robin Myers and Michael Harris, Spreading the Word [1998], 151-64) AA