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Reginald Bosworth Smith
M.A.
Seated photographic portrait on a chair of John Clay, holding a book and with books on a table
Portrait of Bosworth Smith, photography by John Pouncy of Dorchester
Born1839
Died1908
Occupation(s)schoolmaster,author

Reginald Bosworth Smith(1839–1908) was an English academic, schoolmaster,man of lettersand author.

Background and early life

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Born on 28 June 1839 atWest Staffordrectory,Dorset,he was the second son in the large family ofReginald Southwell Smith(1809–1896); his mother was Emily Genevieve Simpson, daughter of Henry Hanson Simpson of Bitterne Manor House, Hampshire, and 12 Camden Place, Bath.[1]His was an invalid suffering fromtuberculosis.Bosworth Smith was brought up mostly by his mother, in a rectory family of 12 children, most of whom were infected by tuberculosis with some dying young.[2]

FromMilton Abbasschool, nearBlandford,Bosworth Smith went on in August 1855 toMarlborough College,where he was head boy under successive headmasters—George Edward Lynch Cotton,andGeorge Granville Bradley.[1]

Oxford and Harrow

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At Michaelmas 1858 Bosworth Smith matriculated with an open classical scholarship atCorpus Christi College, Oxford,and he graduated B.A. in 1862 with first-class honours both in classical moderations and in the final classical school. In the same year he was president of theOxford Union.In 1863 he was elected to a classical fellowship atTrinity College, Oxford,and he was appointed tutor of the college, and lecturer both there and at Corpus Christi. He proceeded M.A. in 1865.[1][3]

On 16 September 1864 Bosworth Smith began work as a classical master atHarrow School,on the nomination of the headmasterHenry Montagu Butler.He married the following year, and from 1870 he was housemaster of The Knoll, which he built at his own expense, and where he designed the garden. For more than 30 years Bosworth Smith mainly devoted his time to his duties at Harrow. In his form teaching, he leavened the classical tradition with history, scripture, geography, and English literature, especiallyJohn Milton.[1]Not being inholy orders,he at that period was not considered eligible to become Harrow's headmaster.[4]

The writerThomas Hardywas born near West Stafford, at Higher Bockhampton in the parish ofStinsford.[5]During the mid-1870s he became established as a family friend with the Smiths: he knew Bosworth Smith's father as "Canon Smith", and his mother, whose urbanity impressed him, as Geneviève. Bosworth Smith himself became a personal friend.[6][7][8]This was despite a socially awkward moment at dinner in the rectory in 1874: the Smiths were entertaining with the help of James Pole, John Floyer's butler. Hardy and Cassie Pole, James Pole's daughter, had been walking out some years earlier, before breaking up, and the butler was unwilling to serve Hardy.[7][9]

Later life and death

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Bosworth Smith travelled frequently in his vacations. In 1895 he purchased an old manor house atBingham's Melcombe,Dorset, and there he resided on his retirement from Harrow in 1901. He was J.P. for Dorsetshire, a member of the education committee of the county council, vice-president of the Dorset Field Club, to which he lectured more than once, a member of the Salisbury Diocesan Synod, and a member of the house of laymen in the representative church council at Westminster. After a long illness he died at Bingham's Melcombe on 18 October 1908, and was buried beside his parents and brothers in the churchyard of West Stafford.[1]

A portrait of Bosworth Smith was painted byHugh Goldwin Rivière,presented by old pupils at Harrow and engraved by theFine Arts Society.He was commemorated by tablets in Harrow school chapel and in the church at Bingham's Melcombe, and in his memory were erected a portion of thereredosin the church at West Stafford and (by friends and pupils) a stone balustrade in the terrace gardens at Harrow.[1]

Works

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Bosworth Smith is now mainly remembered forMohammed and Mohammedanism: Lectures Delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in February and March 1874(1874).[10]The book excited controversy, and ran to several editions. It was translated into Arabic.[1]

Smith's views onChristianity and Islamdrew onHeinrich Barth,Theodor WaitzandJohn Pope Hennessy.[11]They can be placed in a "conciliatory" tradition represented by theMahometanism Unveiled(1829) of Charles Forster (1787–1871), andThe Religions of the World(1846) ofF. D. Maurice.[12][13]They were later supported byEdward Wilmot Blyden,a Liberian Christian missionary who argued that Islam had brought clear advantages to Africans.[14]Blyden and Bosworth Smith met, throughArthur Penrhyn Stanley,became friends, exchanged visits, and corresponded at length.[11][15]Smith's deprecation of Christian missionary efforts in Africa was already inWinwood Reade'sSavage Africa.[16]The contrasting adversarial stance against Islam, ofWilliam Muir'sLife of MahometandThe Coran,and followed byJohn Drew BateandWilliam St. Clair Tisdall,drew on oriental studies and established missionary views on conversion as an imperative.[13]

Bosworth Smith's conciliatory approach also had the support ofSayyid Ahmad Khan.[17]The work ofW. Montgomery Wattin the 20th century has been compared to Smith's.[18]

In a controversy arising towards the end of 1887,Isaac Taylorwent further in attacking existing Christian missionary activity, and in particular its commercial links. Smith allied himself with theChurch Missionary Society,rebutting Taylor's propositions, and raising the question of plagiarism, since they were not novel. He found himself in rough consensus withThomas Patrick Hughes,Harry Johnston,Joseph Thomson:on the positive contributions in Africa of Islam, and negative points; and on the value and prospects of Christian missionary work.[19]This debate was concurrent with one on an atrocity in Bosnia-Herzegovina reported byHenry LiddonandMalcolm MacCollfrom a steamer journey on theSava.[20]

Andrew WallscalledMohammed and Mohammedanism"strangely influential", the work of "one of nature's amateurs" who knew no Arabic. He saw Smith as influenced by F. D. Maurice and the nascent study ofcomparative religionas represented byMax Müller,with a "cheerful evolutionism". Smith's overall theme was "responsibilities attaching to British imperial and military power."[21]

Other books were:

  • Carthage and the Carthaginians(1878 abridged edit. 1881,Rome and Carthage), seven lectures also delivered before theRoyal Institution.[1]
  • Life of Lord Lawrence(1883, two vols.)[22][23]This was an official biography ofJohn Lawrence, 1st Baron Lawrence,Viceroy of India, and ran to seven editions. He declined other work of similar kind.[1]

Controversialist

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Bosworth Smith intervened in political, religious, and debates, mainly through letters toThe Timesor articles in the reviews. During theRusso-Turkish War (1877–1878)he defended the Turkish character, and insisted on the danger to India of Russia'sforward policy.In 1885 he urged the permanent British occupation of the Sudan, and in 1892 he protested against the evacuation of Uganda, which was not carried out. On 20 October 1892, speaking for a deputation of theBritish and Foreign Anti-Slavery SocietytoLord Rosebery,then Foreign Secretary, he pleaded for "the continuity of the moral policy of England." His letters were reprinted as a pamphlet.[1]

In the autumn of 1885 he defended the Church of England againstW. E. Gladstone's andJoseph Chamberlain's menaces of disestablishment. To an early evangelical background he added a liberal tolerance, but his loyalty as churchman was intense. Gladstone replied vaguely to his appeal for some reassuring message to liberal churchmen. Smith's letters were published by theChurch Defence Institutionas a pamphletReasons of a Layman and a Liberal for opposing Disestablishment.[1]

Ornithology

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  • Birds of Marlborough,(1863)[1]
  • Bird Life and Bird Lore,(1905, new edit. 1909), based on articles in theNineteenth Century,with other chapters descriptive of Dorset life.[1]

Family

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On 9 August 1865 Bosworth Smith married Flora, fourth daughter of the Rev. Edward Dawe Wickham, rector of Holmwood, Surrey (1851–1893), and sister ofArchdale Palmer Wickham;[24][25]the fifth daughter, Alice Bertha, was wife of Bosworth's elder brother, Henry John Smith (1838–1879). Bosworth Smith's own handwriting was all but illegible, and Flora copied out what he wrote for publication, and most of his important private letters. She survived him, and died in 1927.[1][26]Their children included:

  • Gerald Hugh Bosworth Smith (born 1868), married 1893 Olive Yates, daughter of Charles Yates of Florida.[27]He was educated at Marlborough College, and became a farmer in Cuba.[28]
Memorial plaque to Alan Wyldbore Bosworth Smith in Bingham's Melcombe Church
  • Alan Wyldbore Bosworth Smith (born 1870),[29]lieutenant R.N., second son, lost his life at sea when in command ofHMSCobra(18 September 1901). He went down on the bridge of the vessel.[30]
  • Reginald Montagu Bosworth Smith (born 1871), third son. Basuto Police, married 1905 Agnes Val Davies.[31][32]
  • Bertrand Nigel Bosworth Smith(1873–1947), Indian Civil Service.[32][33]
  • Mervyn Henry Bosworth-Smith, fifth son, (1878–1950).[32][34][35]In 1905 he founded a trading post atMalealea,now inLesotho.[36]He married, firstly in 1914, Sophie Warmington, daughter of John Warmington.[35]
  • Nevil Digby Bosworth Smith (born 1886).[32]Educated at Harrow School andPembroke College, Cambridge,he became an education inspector in 1911.[37]As Nevil D. B. Smith, he married in 1913 Gladys Wood.[38][39]
  • Ellinor, eldest daughter, married firstlyHarry Langhorne Thompsonin 1894, and secondly in 1907Sir Edward Grogan, 2nd Baronet.[40][41]
  • Emily Winifred (Frida) (1875–1919), second daughter, married in 1907August Heisler(1881–1953), a German physician with from 1910 a practice in theBlack Forest.[41][42]
  • Lorna, third daughter, married in 1906Edwin Goldmann.[41]The wedding was attended by Thomas Hardy and his wifeEmma Gifford.Lorna died in 1919, after her husband, leaving a daughter Lorna (born 1908) who became a ward of Goldmann's brotherSydney Goldman,and in 1927 marriedStewart Gore-Browne.Hardy wrote one of his final poems, "Lorna the Second", informed by Gore-Browne's earlier interest in her mother, who had turned him down for Goldmann.[43][44]Gore-Browne met Lorna II at the funeral of Bosworth Smith's wife Flora.[26]
  • Bertha Joan.[45]She married firstly, Charles Sinclair Shephard, an army officer, in 1911 as his second wife.[46]As Bertha J. B. Shephard, she married secondly, in 1939, Reuben Cochrane.[47][48]

Notes

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  1. ^abcdefghijklmnLee, Sidney,ed. (1912)."Smith, Reginald Bosworth".Dictionary of National Biography(2nd supplement).Vol. 3. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  2. ^Smith, Margaret (2003)."Two Miles from Stinsford: West Stafford in the 1850s".The Thomas Hardy Journal.19(3): 60–61.ISSN0268-5418.JSTOR45273080.
  3. ^Foster, Joseph(1888–1892)."Smith, Reginald Bosworth".Alumni Oxonienses: the Members of the University of Oxford, 1715–1886.Oxford: Parker and Co – viaWikisource.
  4. ^Curthoys, M. C. "Smith, Reginald Bosworth (1839–1908)".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography(online ed.). Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/36153.(Subscription orUK public library membershiprequired.)
  5. ^Pite, Ralph (1 January 2007).Thomas Hardy: The Guarded Life.Yale University Press. p. 27.ISBN978-0-300-12337-1.
  6. ^Millgate, Michael (2006).Thomas Hardy: A Biography Revisited.Oxford University Press. p. 226.ISBN978-0-19-927566-3.
  7. ^abPite, Ralph (1 January 2007).Thomas Hardy: The Guarded Life.Yale University Press. pp. 200–201.ISBN978-0-300-12337-1.
  8. ^Hardy, Thomas (2007).Thomas Hardy.Wordsworth Editions. p. 258.ISBN978-1-84022-559-4.
  9. ^Ford, Mark (10 October 2016).Thomas Hardy: Half a Londoner.Harvard University Press. p. 167.ISBN978-0-674-73789-1.
  10. ^Smith, Reginald Bosworth (1874).Mohammed and Mohammedanism: Lectures Delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in February and March 1874.London: Smith, Elder.
  11. ^abBlackhawk, Ned; Wilner, Isaiah Lorado (24 April 2018).Indigenous Visions: Rediscovering the World of Franz Boas.Yale University Press. p. 295.ISBN978-0-300-23567-8.
  12. ^Bennett, Clinton (1 January 1998).In Search of Muhammad.A&C Black. p. 103.ISBN978-0-8264-3576-7.
  13. ^abScholl, Lesa; Morris, Emily (15 December 2022).The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Victorian Women's Writing.Springer Nature. p. 809.ISBN978-3-030-78318-1.
  14. ^Walls, Andrew F. (1999)."Africa as the Theatre of Christian Engagement with Islam in the Nineteenth Century".Journal of Religion in Africa.29(2): 166.doi:10.2307/1581870.ISSN0022-4200.JSTOR1581870.
  15. ^Livingston, Thomas W. (1975).Education and Race: A Biography of Edward Wilmot Blyden.Glendessary Press. p. 54.ISBN978-0-87709-772-3.
  16. ^Prasch, Thomas (1989)."Which God for Africa: The Islamic-Christian Missionary Debate in Late-Victorian England".Victorian Studies.33(1): 56.ISSN0042-5222.JSTOR3827898.
  17. ^Saikia, Yasmin; Rahman, M. Raisur (21 March 2019).The Cambridge Companion to Sayyid Ahmad Khan.Cambridge University Press. p. 104.ISBN978-1-108-48387-2.
  18. ^Bennett, Clinton (1 January 1998).In Search of Muhammad.A&C Black. p. 128.ISBN978-0-304-70401-9.
  19. ^Prasch, Thomas (1989)."Which God for Africa: The Islamic-Christian Missionary Debate in Late-Victorian England".Victorian Studies.33(1): 51–54, 71.ISSN0042-5222.JSTOR3827898.
  20. ^The Nation.J.H. Richards. 1887. p. 500.
  21. ^Walls, Andrew F. (1999)."Africa as the Theatre of Christian Engagement with Islam in the Nineteenth Century".Journal of Religion in Africa.29(2): 165–166.doi:10.2307/1581870.ISSN0022-4200.JSTOR1581870.
  22. ^Smith, Reginald Bosworth (1883).Life of Lord Lawrence.Vol. I. Charles Scribner's, Sons.
  23. ^Smith, Reginald Bosworth (1883).Life of Lord Lawrence.Vol. II. Smith, Elder & Company.
  24. ^Foster, Joseph(1888–1892)."Wickham, Edmund Dawe".Alumni Oxonienses: the Members of the University of Oxford, 1715–1886.Oxford: Parker and Co – viaWikisource.
  25. ^Foster, Joseph(1888–1892)."Wickham, Rev. Archdale Palmer".Alumni Oxonienses: the Members of the University of Oxford, 1715–1886.Oxford: Parker and Co – viaWikisource.
  26. ^abRotberg, Robert I. (8 January 2021).Black Heart: Gore-Browne and the Politics of Multiracial Zambia.Univ of California Press. pp. 133–134.ISBN978-0-520-32816-7.
  27. ^Walford, Edward (January 1860).The county families of the United Kingdom; or, Royal manual of the titled and untitled aristocracy of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland.Dalcassian Publishing Company. p. 140.
  28. ^Marlborough College; James, L. Warwick (1952).Marlborough College Register: 1843-1952.The College. p. 272.
  29. ^"A Story of Lieutenant Bosworth Smith".Yorkshire Evening Post.25 September 1901. p. 2.
  30. ^"Wreck of H.M.S. Cobra".Reading Mercury.21 September 1901. p. 6.
  31. ^Kidd, Charles; Shaw, Christine (24 June 2008).Debrett's Peerage & Baronetage 2008.Debrett's. p. B633.ISBN978-1-870520-80-5.
  32. ^abcdFox-Davies, Arthur Charles (1910).Armorial Families: A Directory of Gentlemen of Coat-armour.T.C. & E.C. Jack. p. 1485.
  33. ^Churchill, Randolph Spencer (1967).Winston S. Churchill. Companion Volume.Vol. 1. 1874-1896. Houghton Mifflin. p. 346 note 1.
  34. ^Rugby School, Rugby (1904).Rugby School Register: From May 1874 to May 1904.subscribers. p. 190.
  35. ^abDebrett's Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage, and Companionage.Kelly's Directories. 1973. p. 1791.
  36. ^Fick, David (1 April 2007).Africa: Continent of Economic Opportunity.Real African Publishers. p. 134.ISBN978-1-919855-59-2.
  37. ^Savage, Gail (15 March 1996).The Social Construction of Expertise: The English Civil Service and Its Influence, 1919–1939.University of Pittsburgh Press. p. 194.ISBN978-0-8229-7481-9.
  38. ^"FreeBMD Entry Info".freebmd.org.uk.
  39. ^"FreeBMD Entry Info".freebmd.org.uk.
  40. ^"Marriage of Miss Bosworth Smith".Southern Times and Dorset County Herald.8 December 1894. p. 3.
  41. ^abcBosworth Smith Grogan, Ellinor Flora (1909).Reginald Bosworth Smith: A Memoir.J. Nisbet & Co., limited. p. 301.
  42. ^Seidler, Eduard."Heisler, August - Deutsche Biographie".deutsche-biographie.de(in German).
  43. ^"The Thomas Hardy Association" Note and Queries "Forum".The Hardy Review.4:122. 2001.ISSN1934-8908.JSTOR45301619.
  44. ^Bond, Mark; Lovering, Beatrice; Doheny, John; Bird, Dennis L.; Sumner, Rosemary (1999)."Letters".The Thomas Hardy Journal.15(3): 60–61.ISSN0268-5418.JSTOR45274450.
  45. ^Walford, Edward (1892).The Windsor Peerage for 1890-1894.p. 496.
  46. ^"Non-Boer War".angloboerwar.
  47. ^"FreeBMD Entry Info".freebmd.org.uk.
  48. ^"FreeBMD Entry Info".freebmd.org.uk.
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Attribution

WikisourceThis article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain:Lee, Sidney,ed. (1912). "Smith, Reginald Bosworth".Dictionary of National Biography(2nd supplement).Vol. 3. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

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