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Author: Smith, Thomas Enort

Biography:

SMITH, Thomas Enort (1777-1850: ancestry.co.uk)

He was baptised 15 Oct. 1777 at St. Katherine Creechurch, City of London, the third of at least seven children of Benjamin Alexander Smith and Ann Enort, who had married at All Hallows, London Wall, in 1773. The family was originally from Breconshire, Wales. He was educated at Eltham school and began contributing to periodicals at the age of 14. He traded as a leather-seller from Black Swan Yard, Bermondsey, south London, and frequently travelled around the country on business, often writing sonnets in taverns. He was declared bankrupt in Nov. 1806 and the proceedings went on for several years. He applied unsuccessfully to the RLF for assistance in Nov. 1807, stating that he had a wife and two children and was living in a Leather Sellers’ almshouse in Bishopsgate, City of London. (The “wife” was perhaps Ann Brien, whom he married on 19 Apr. 1812 at St. George the Martyr, Southwark, south London; he appears to have had several children with her prior to marriage. She probably predeceased him.) He applied again in 1823 from Southwark but the application was dismissed, “his literary pretensions being merely occasional Sonnets in Magazines.” In 1830 he was awarded £5. The work listed here, of which 130 copies were printed, was “printed for private circulation and never published” and no copy has been located. In 1840 he still had copies on hand despite testimonials from Joseph Moser, George Dyer, and John Thelwall (qq.v.). He was awarded a further £5. He was never earning more than ten shillings a week in later life, employed as reader and amanuensis and sometime stationer. He lived with his daughter and a widow from 1832. He contributed to the European MagazineMonthly MagazineLondon Magazine, and many other magazines and newspapers, besides many technical papers on tanning and other subjects to the Mechanics’ Magazine. He died, aged 73, on 11 Aug. 1850 at 5 Liverpool Street, Walworth, with his occupation given as stationer, and was buried at St. Peter’s Walworth, south London. His poems on well-worn topographical themes and memorial verses to poets contributed to a vast array of magazines and newspapers (listed in RLF) over a period of more than fifty years (1791-1848) are not particularly original but possibly merit another look. (ancestry.co.uk 20 May 2023; findmypast.co.uk 20 May 2023; RLF, 1/212; GRO death cert.) AA

 

Other Names:

  • Enort Smith
 

Books written (1):