Joseph Smith (academic)

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Joseph Smith (1670–1756) was an English churchman and academic, Provost of The Queen's College, Oxford, from 1730.

Joseph Smith, portrait by James Maubert

Early life

The fifth son of William Smith, rector of

Guisborough grammar school. He went on to Durham School, and on 10 May 1689 he was admitted a scholar of The Queen's College, Oxford. In 1693 he was chosen a tabarder and graduated B.A. in 1694.[1]

Smith proceeded M.A. by diploma in 1697, having accompanied

senior proctor, and dubbed "handsome Smith" to distinguish him from his colleague Thomas Smith of St John's College. In the same year Halton died, and friends proposed him as a candidate for Provost; but Smith backed William Lancaster, his former tutor, who was elected.[1]

London positions

The new Provost presented Smith to London posts: Russell Court Chapel and the lectureship of Trinity Chapel,

St Dionis, Lime Street, London.[1]

On the accession of George I, Smith was again introduced to court, by the Earl of Grantham, and was made chaplain to the Princess of Wales. In 1723 Edmund Gibson, Bishop of Lincoln, an old college friend, appointed him to the prebend of Dunholm, and on Gibson's transfer to the see of London he gave him the donative of Paddington. In 1724 he was appointed to the lectureship of the new church of St George's, Hanover Square, and on 8 May 1728 Gibson gave him the prebend of St. Mary Newington in St Paul's Cathedral.[1]

Provost in Oxford

Queen Caroline by Henry Cheere
, The Queen's College, Oxford

In 1730, on the death of John Gibson, Smith, without doing any canvassing, was chosen Provost of The Queen's College. He was a reforming head of house.

Through the good offices of

Richmond, Surrey.[1]

Smith died in Queen's College on 23 November 1756, and was interred in the vault under the new chapel.[1]

Works

Smith was the author of:[1]

To Smith has also been attributed The Difference between the Nonjurors and the Present Public Assemblies, 1716. It provoked the reply, Joseph and Benjamin; or Little Demetrius tossed in a Blanket, London, June 1717, an anonymous

ichnography, an expansion of a statement first issued in Provost Gibson's time; and ordered cuts of the buildings by Michael Burghers (died 1727) to be re-engraved in quarto
.

Family

In 1709 Smith married Mary Lowther, youngest daughter of Henry Lowther of Ingleton Hall in Yorkshire and of Lowther in Fermanagh, and niece of Timothy Halton. She died on 29 April 1745. By her he had three children:[1]

  • Joseph, an advocate of Doctors' Commons;
  • Anne, married, first, to Prebendary Lamplugh, a grandson of the archbishop Thomas Lamplugh, and, secondly, to Captain James Hargraves; and
  • William, who died young.

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Lee, Sidney, ed. (1898). "Smith, Joseph (1670-1756)" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 53. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  2. ISBN 978-1-84383-288-1
    .
  3. ISBN 978-0-521-06197-1
    .
Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1898). "Smith, Joseph (1670-1756)". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 53. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

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