For the descendents of Richard Dearie and his son John Russell

Henry Wells Smart

2 Oct 1837 - 29 July 1912

Bank Manager

Compiled by Claire Grey

Nellie Smart’s father was Henry Wells Smart who can be seen in the photograph of the tennis party at Roslin, along with Nellie's sister Kathleen and her younger brother Eric. Henry Wells was born on 2 October 1837 at 21 Henry Street Bedford Square, Stepney, Mile End, and baptised on 10 Dec 1837 at St Dunstan’s Stepney. Family history says that his father died when he was a child.

There is a Henry Wells Smart aged 7 at the Infant Orphan Asylum called St John in Hackney on the 1841 census. This was in Dalston Lane. All the children are listed as birth place unknown. There is also a Rebecca Smart there aged 5 but she may be no relation.(1)

In the 1851 census a Henry Wells Smart can be found aged 13 in the London Orphan Asylum Hackney, ( Lower Clapton Road) with the birthplace of Glasgow Scotland.(2)

He can be found on the 1861 census aged 21 living at 59, City Road St Luke, Finsbury already a bank clerk.

He married Elizabeth Turner Powell on 3 August 1868 at Trinity Church Marylebone. The witnesses were John Gill and Martha Abigail Powell. His wife Elizabeth was born in 1849 in Islington. She had about 12 children including Nellie.

On the 1871 census Henry is living with his wife at 247, New North Road with their son Henry aged one. He gives his age as 30 on this census. He is clerk in a city bank. They have one domestic servant and share their house with a teacher and his wife.

The family can be found on the 1881 census at 9, Pemberton Gardens, London, Henry is 40 a bank clerk, his wife Elizabeth T. is 32, they are living with daughter Mary aged 7, son Francis aged 4, son David, aged 3, daughter Nellie, aged 6 months; all the children were born in Islington. The family have 3 female servants. In 1891 census he is still at 9, Pemberton Gardens aged 50 with Elizabeth aged 42, Mary aged 12, Francis aged 14, David aged 12, Nellie aged 10, John , aged 8, Eric E. aged 4 and a hired help and a visitor called Elsie Dannenberg.

In the 1901 census aged 60 he is a bank manager, his wife is 52, his son Francis A aged 24 is single and a bank clerk, his son David 23 single is a bank clerk, daughter Nellie is 20, his son John S. is single and a bank clerk and his son Arthur aged 22 is single and a Stock jobber's assistant. They have two female domestic servants. (3)

He does not appear to be on the 1911 census. He lived at Hillside, Shepherds Hill, Highgate but died in a nursing home in Fitzroy Square on 29 July 1912.

Samuel Thomas Smart : Bank Clerk

Henry Wells' parents were Samuel Thomas Smart a bank Clerk baptised on 6 May 1804 at St Saviours, Dartmouth and Mary Wells born in Whitechapel. Samuel Thomas Smart's will was written on 1 September 1836. He was living at 21 Henry Street, Mile End Old Town. One of the witnesses is Mary Wells of 78 Cable St. Whitechapel. It was proved on the 6 August 1840. Mary Wells had at least 2 children: Henry Wells born at 21 Henry Street, Bedford Square, Stepney on 2 October 1837 and Charlotte Elizabeth born 1 July 1839 at 15 Hannibal Rd, Stepney Green, and baptised on 1 August 1839 at St Dunstans in Stepney. (4)

Samuel Thomas was dead by 1840, before Henry was 3 years old. Charlotte is the only sister of Henry on Gertrude Fox’s tree. It seems very sad to consider that Charlotte has been kept with her mother while Henry was put in the orphanage.

Mary Smart appears on the 1841 census aged 29, living at Hardwick Place, Stepney, Ratcliffe, Tower Hamlets. Her occupation is School mistress, her daughter Charlotte is aged 2. Hardwick Place seems to be a large institution of some kind. In the 1851 census she is aged 40, widow, described as a" Lady Resident" living at Queen's Cottage , 4 Artillery Place, St Luke, with her daughter Charlotte Elizabeth aged 11, and one servant. A hand written note adds Gover which may be short for governess. On the 1861 census aged 44 governess born in London living with her daughter Charlotte Elizabeth, unmarried aged 20 at 4 Tenterden Street, St Georges, Hanover Square, Westminster.

She has not been found on the 1871 census.

Samuel Smart: Master Mariner

Samuel Thomas's father was Samuel Smart from Birmingham who married Sophia Mugridge on 13 Dec 1798 at St Saviours Dartmouth. The witnesses were Charles Hill and ?Hellon Tucker.

Sophia Mugridge is said to be the sister of Elizabeth Lidstone Muggeridge who married John Hogg the jeweller.

Their son Samuel Thomas was baptised at St Saviours on 6th May 1804.

Twelve other children of a Samuel Smart and Sophia or an Amelia Sophia Mugridge have been found on the family search web site but original sources have not been checked to see if this is the same family. (There may have been another 3)

The children appear to be spaced out in a way to make it possible for it to be one family. See tree on left. From the dates of their marriage it is quite possible that there may be more missing children born between 1799 and 1802.

It seems more than a coincidence that the name Hogg appears here, when, if this is the right family, her sister Elizabeth married a John Hogg. But it seems a bit odd to use the surname of a brother in law unless there are more Hogg connections further back in the family.

Some of these children are baptised in more than one place and the family seems to have moved around a lot. Samuel Smart was a master mariner.(5) At some point in the 1820s they lived near the Tower of London, at Number 11, Katherine Square. Four of the youngest children were baptised at St. Katherines by the Tower. It looks like Anne Mugridge, born in 1817, probably died in infancy.

The church and the square were demolished by 1825 to make way for the construction of St. Katherine's docks. A history of it can be found here.

It is tempting to surmise that one of Samuel Smart's children is the Smart who is Jack Russell’s grandfather. Samuel would be Elizabeth Hogg’s Uncle and his sons would be her first cousins. A master mariner would be someone in charge of a merchant ship and therefore could be described as a Captain. The most likely candidate would be John William Smart as Jack's name was John William.

More research is needed and many from such a large family may not have survived infancy.

Notes:

(1) Dalston infant orphan asylum, under royal patronage like the London Orphan Asylum, was founded by Reed in 1827. It moved from Bethnal Green to Dalston Lane in 1832, expanded to occupy three houses, with 170 children in 1842, and made way for the German hospital after moving in 1843 to Essex, where it became the Royal Wanstead school. This information is from : www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=22706

Ages are unreliable in the 1841 census, and in addition the asylum may not have known his age.

(2) The London Orphan Asylum was founded in 1813 by Andrew Reed (d. 1862), who had been trained at Hackney College. The site of Hackney school off Lower Clapton Road, later reached by Linscott Road, was bought in 1820 and the children were transferred to new buildings there in 1825. The asylum included boys' and girls' schools and was administered by the headmaster, who was also chaplain; numbers rose from 206 in 1826 to 453 in the 1860s. The building by W. S. Inman, 'very ambitious although rather cheaply executed', had a frontage of 19 bays, the central 3 projecting beneath a pedimented Tuscan portico and the outer ones also projecting; it was extended behind in 1846 and included a chapel seating 400 in 1851. After the orphans had moved to Watford (Herts.) in 1871, the building was occupied by the Metropolitan Asylums Board c. 1873-6 and the Salvation Army from 1882.

From web site as above.

(3) Gertrude Fox's family tree shows that out of 12 children only 6 survived into adulthood, even Mary died young.

(4) Many Smarts are associated with St Dunstans. A history of the church can be read here.

(5) The fact that Samuel came from Birmingham, as far as possible from the sea as it is to be in the UK, had made us assume he was not employed in ships. Although Gertrude Fox had identified him as a Captain on her family tree, his profession was only confirmed in the registers of St Katherines in May 2010.

An Eliza M. Smart born in Great Yarmouth can be found on the 1851 census at 20, Upper John Street, Saint George in the East, Tower Hamlets. She is 37, unmarried and a school assistant, living with a couple who are also school teachers.

On the 1861 census she is a teacher in a public school living in Servant's Homes in Nutford Place, Marylebone. By 1871 she is a boarder at No 4 Sutton Place in Hackney giving her occupation as "formerly a matron". A death of an Eliza Maria Smart aged 63 has been found at 15, The Grove, Hackney on 20 October 1877, occupation "formerly teacher in a mission school" but more research is needed to make certain that this is the right person, since Smart is a common name.

Other investigations into her brothers have so far proved inconclusive.

A search of the British Newspaper Archives online in December 2011, uncovered the advertisement transcribed below from the Morning Chronicle Monday of 14 January 1822, on page 1 under Advertisements and Notices.

“To the PRESIDENT, VICE PRESIDENT, and GOVERORS of the LONDON ORPHAN ASYLUM. THE favour of your Vote and Interest is earnestly requested for ELIZA MARIA SMART, aged nearly eight years, a daughter of the late Mr. Samuel Smart, who was a Master in the West India Trade, and who died at Jamaica in June last, leaving a widow totally unprovided for, who has been the Mother of Sixteen Children, has lost three Sons and her Husband in 21 months, and has now Six Children living (one of them only 5 months old) four of whom are entirely dependent upon her for support. The Election will be at the City of London Tavern, on Thursday next. The above Candidate is strongly recommended by Sir Thomas Turton, Bart. The Rev. G.F.L. Nicolay D.D. Ward Esq. W. Andrews Esq. F. C. Chappell, Esq. Mr C Gabriel Henry Abbott, Esq. Robert Cowie, Esq. Messrs. Arnold and Woollett John S. Clarke, Esq. Mr. John Taprell Mr Benjamin Massey. Also by Mrs. Buckland, Surrey-square, Kent-road, by whom proxies will be thankfully received, as well as by Mr. Angell, in the Tower.”

Smart is a very common name and there were no doubt many seamen called Samuel Smart but Eliza Maria’s age fits the above family. Was one of her brother Jessie Russell’s father? The above information leads to the conclusion that all 4 Smarts were drowned and that they were probably involved in the Slave Trade.

Index to Trinity House Petitions held at the Society of Genealogists: Series 2 Book 9. Amelia's age and the location appears to confirm that Samuel Smart died in June 1821. A partial transcription of the original from a fiche at SOG: 20th December 1821.

"Amelia Sophia Smart aged 43 widow of Samuel Smart residing at No 11 St Katherine's Square, whose husband and three sons died in the West Indies in 21 months. Husband served as a gunner in the Telmachus hired armed cutter then as master of the hired armed cutter Princess Augusta. Subsequently the station of master on board the ships Mary and Shakespeare both in the West Indies Trade of which ships Mssrs Arnotts?Arnoss ?woolwich was owner or manager and served in that capacity 2 1/2 years in those ships and 3 years as master of the Amelia from Yarmouth. The petitioner has 4 children unprovided for whose names and ages are Ameila Sophia 15 years, Jhn Haywood 9 years, Eliza Maria 7 years, Frances Leslie 8 months. Has no property or income whatsoever and no other relief from public charity or company." The petition is accompanied by a certificate signed by the owner of ship where her husband served at the highest level:Maria and Shakespeare, signed by owner of Shakespeare in 1820, and certificate from Church warden of St Katherines saying she is lodger at the address and has 4 children.