Author: Smithers, Henry
Biography:
SMITHERS, Henry (1762-1828: ancestry.co.uk)
He was born on 7 Aug. 1762, at Crooked Lane, City of London, the son of Joseph Smithers (1739-89), schoolmaster at Lothbury (Dissenting) Academy, Tokenhouse Yard, City of London, and Martha Keene (1739-1783), who had married at St. Mary, Newington, Lambeth, in 1760. Henry Smithers’s birth was registered in 1776 at Dr. Williams’s Library. It seems likely he was educated at his father’s academy but no student lists have survived. He married Sophia Papps on 22 Feb. 1783 at St. Matthew, Bethnal Green. They had at least seven children. In 1788 Joseph Towers (q.v.) proposed him for membership of the Society for Constitutional Information and he also became a steward of the Revolution Society. These early radical allegiances almost certainly changed after the French Revolution; his first volume, Affection, With Other Poems(1807) located the source of paternal and marital affection and love of country in God’s benevolence. Although the book was lavishly produced and his address given as The Adelphi, his wealth may have been short-lived or illusory. He formed a partnership with Henry Keene and traded as a coal-merchant, at Phoenix Wharf, Southwark, and later at Clink Street, near London Bridge, until 1805. Thereafter, he went into business with his sons but went bankrupt in 1813 and 1815. He then went to Belgium and the Netherlands, possibly to escape creditors. Living in Brussels, he described himself as a “Lecturer in Historical Geography” and published a short Monody on the Death of . . . Princess Charlotte (1817); Observations made during a Tour in 1816 and 1817 (1817); a translation and critique of Rousseau, The Cultivation of the Arts and Sciences(1818); and an historical anthology of English verse with introductory remarks, The Progress of English Poetry (1820). On returning to England he lectured first at Derby and then moved to Liverpool. He published a poetical critique of Byron’s infidelity, Uriel (1822) but became best known for Liverpool, Its Commerce, Statistics, and Institutions; With a History of the Cotton Trade (1825) which contained a short history and critique of the slave trade. He died on 4 Apr. 1828 and was buried at St. Mary’s, Edge Hill, Lancashire. (ancestry.co.uk 3 Apr. 2023; findmypast.co.uk 3 Apr. 2023; edpopehistory.co.uk; Janice Hamilton, Writinguptheancestors.ca; Derby Mercury 23 and 30 Oct. 1822; Liverpool Mercury 11 Apr. 1828; GM Mar. 1800, 289-91; London Gazette, various issues) AA