User:Rodolph/Robert Smith (merchant)

Robert Smith (d.1748), was an eminent early eighteenth century London merchant and freeman based in Thames Street, in the parish of St James Garlickhythe.

Smith (c1672 - 11 January 1748, Mortlake) was of Thames Street and Worcester Place (near Kennet wharf), in St James Garlickhythe; and also of Mortlake in Surrey; and Coldashby, Northamptonshire. Henry Stebbing writing in 1788 described his grandfather as an eminent merchant. In Kent's directory for 1740 he is listed as a merchant of Thames Street.

Sun Fire Office

Smith seems to have acquired a large share of the Sun Fire Office on 24 August 1720 (Dickson, page 271), as part of Colin Campbell's consortium that took advantage of the shake up and fall out caused by the bursting of the South Sea Bubble. He left 50 shares in the Office to his son Lilly. In 1720 the Office had 2,400 shares, and by 1728 there were 4,800. Fifty shares thus by 1748 represented a little over 1% of the company. In his will he also describes having given his Lillie, on his marriage, half of his trade. The trade is hitherto unknown.

Children

Listed below are his known children, eight daughters and two sons, by his wife Ann. In his will dated 13 October 1747 Smith described how he had already made and would make cash provisions for his children that totaled over £32,000. The sums in brackets refer to how much he had already given them or, if under 21 at time of his death, how much they would receive when they reached 21:

• Alice (married Mr. Owirk [?] - given £3,000 on marriage);
• Ann (Ann Townsend of Wandsworth, widow by 1770), (married John Townsend) -£3,000 on marriage, and had three children: William Townsend of Fulham House (1741-1823); Mary Barnard once of Lower Grosvenor Street and then of Fulham and Little Chelsea (died 1842, aged 90, the relict of Rev. Benjamin Barnard (d.1815, aged c80), Prebend of Peterborough); and Mrs (Katherine) Bisse (died 1816) who was Colonel Challoner's mother);
• Lydia (1714-1803), (married Thomas Waters (d.1738) -£2,000 on marriage) then George Challoner (d.1770) of Hales Hall, Cheadle, Staffordshire. Later she was of (Tite Hill), Egham);
• Elizabeth (married Joseph Pouschon, -£2,000 on marriage);
• Lilly (c1715-d.10 Feb. 1791, buried Clewer), (Smith's elder son), -£10,000 on marriage and moiety or half part of my trade; left 50 shares in Sun Fire Office). He was a director of the Sun Fire Office from, at latest, 1754 until his death in 1791. He married Valentina Aynscombe (d. near Windsor 1771) the grand-daughter, heir-at-law and devisee of Thomas Aynscombe (d. 1740) of Charterhouse Square. Her father Philip Aynscombe (d. Boulogne 1737) had married Valentina (died 1745), of St. George, Hanover square, daughter and heir of Daniel Wight III of Southwark. By Act of Parliament 1747 (20 Geo II, c.7) Lillie Smith changed his surname to Aynscombe;
• Sarah (given £2,500);

The remaining children to get their cash when aged 21:

• Catherine (Miss Kitty Smith) (d. Brompton 1807), (left £2,000) (married, March 31, 1758, Rev. William ffraignean (1717-1778). Fraigneau was fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, tutor to family of Frederick, Lord Bolingbroke and Rector of Beckenham (1765-78), Kent and Vicar of Battersea (1758-78) and Cambridge's Regius Professor of Greek 1744-50. (Fraigneau is described in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography);
• Phoebe (still alive in July 1816) (left £2,000) (married Mr. McPhedris/Macphradris);
• Jane (1720- d.17 July 1793, aged 73), (left £2,000) (married, 1751, Rev. Dr. Henry Stebbing, FRS, FSA, (d.1788), son of the divine Rev. Henry Stebbing (1687-1763), and had two children: Henry (barrister) and Anne Duval. Henry Stebbing III (1752-1818) produced Sermons on Practical Subjects (1788), by the late Reverend Henry Stebbing, D.D., preacher to the Hon. Society of Gray's Inn, etc.;
• William (left £4,000 and Mortlake property) (not 21 in 1747). He seems to have died young.

The five eldest (right to left) children of Robert Smith, as depicted by James Maubert (1666-1746). Oil on canvas, 62 by 69 inches

Eldest son and family span

When Lillie died in 1791 The Scots Magazine, (vol. 53, p.102), reported it thus:

10. At his seat at Mortlake, Lillie Ains-

combe, Esq; one of the directors of the Sun

Fire assurance-office. He has left seven sis-

ters, whose ages, computed with his own,

some little time before his death, made 572

years.

Lillie also left three daughters (all died sine prole (d.s.p.)):

• Valentina Aynscombe (c1749-d. 23 March 1841 (GM 556), aged 92),
• Mary Aynscombe (died 1828) married the Rev. John Mossop (1774-1849), vicar of Hothfield in Kent from 1802-1849.
• Charlotte Anne Aynscombe, (1760 at Clewer - died 1799, Mortlake).

References

• Peter G. M. Dickson, The Sun Insurance Office, 1710-1960, Oxford, 1960.
• Sermons on Practical Subjects, by the late Reverend Henry Stebbing [d.1788], D.D., preacher to the Hon. Society of Gray's Inn, Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty, and Fellow of the Royal and Antiquarian Societies, London, with an essay by Henry Stebbing [1752-1818], printed for C. Dilly, in the Poultry, 1788.
• Prerogative Court of Canterbury (P.C.C.) wills for, amongst others: Robert Smith (1748); George Challoner (1770); Charlotte Anne Aynscombe (1799); Lydia Challoner (1803); Rev. Thomas Bisse (1828); Valentina Aynscombe (1841); and Mary Barnard (1842). (Available on-line from P.R.O. Kew, aka National Archives).