Author: Smith, George Charles
Biography:
SMITH, George Charles (1782-1863: ODNB)
He was born on 19 Mar. 1782 at Castle Street (now Charing Cross Road), Westminster, London, the son of William Smith, a tailor, and his wife Nancy Wilson, a lodging-house keeper. In 1794 he was apprenticed to a printer in Southwark but persuaded his recently widowed mother to let him go to sea in 1796 on an American merchant ship. He was then pressed into the Royal Navy and served on HMS Scipio and HMS Agamemnon, and fought with distinction at the Battle of Copenhagen. He was invalided out of the navy in Mar. 1803 and underwent conversion under the influence of Methodists in Reading. With the help of Baptist preacher Opie Smith in Bath, he studied theology at Plymouth Dock (Devonport) under Rev. Isaiah Birt from 1804 to 1807. In Oct. 1807 he became minister of the Octagon Chapel, Penzance, Cornwall. He married Theodosia Skipwith (1787-1866) on 24 May 1808 at Christ Church, Southwark, London. They had at least ten children. From 1809 he began to preach on board navy ships, calling it his “Naval Awakening,” and thereafter dedicated himself to missionary work among seafarers and became known as “Boatswain Smith.” He established a Naval Correspondence Mission, publishing some of the dialogues in The Boatswain’s Mate (1811-12). His open-air preaching in the south-west (1814-17) led to the formation of the Home Missionary Society. He founded The Sailor’s Magazine in 1820 and continued to write for it until his death. In 1825 he formed the Church Mariners’ Society and leased a church in Wellclose Square, London, attempting to transform the area from a ”Sailors’ Sodom and Gomorrah” to a “New Marine Jerusalem.” Infighting with other missionary groups and financial difficulties (including several arrests and imprisonments for debt) plagued him in the 1830s and 1840s and he returned to Penzance in 1848. In 1861 he was invited to America where seafarer mission groups feted him. He died at the Jordan Bethel House, Penzance on 10 Jan. 1863, aged 81, with around 2000 mourners at his funeral. (ODNB 26 Dec. 2022; Roald Kverndal, George Charles Smith of Penzance: From Nelson Sailor to Mission Pioneer [2012]; [George Charles Smith], “Retrospect of Early Life on Land and Sea,” The Mariners’ Church, March 1847, 96-104; ancestry.co.uk 26 Dec. 2022; findmypast.co.uk 26 Dec. 2022; Patriot 10 July 1862, 15 Jan. 1863) AA
Other Names:
- G. C. Smith