| 1808 |
Smith Child - born
5th march 1808 at Newfield Hall, Tunstall. |
| 1811 |
Smith Child's
father John George Child dies. |
| 1813 |
Smith Child's
grandfather Admiral Smith Child dies.
Smith Child becomes the heir to the Newfield and other estates (which had originally
belonged to the Baddeley family of Tunstall). |
| 1835 |
S.C. married Sarah
née Hill on 28th January 1835 at Fulford church. |
| 1841 |
In 1841
Smith Child and his family moved from Newfield Hall to Rownall Hall,
Wetley. |
| 1851 |
Smith Child was
returned as unopposed Conservative member of Parliament for North
Staffordshire. |
| 1853 |
On the
death of his father-in-law (Richard Clarke Hill) Smith Child was left
Stallington Hall where he and his family lived. |
| 1865 |
Served as High
Sheriff of Staffordshire. was also a deputy lieutenant and county
magistrate. |
| 1868 |
Subscribed to the
fund for the relief of victims of the Talk colliery disaster. |
| 1868 |
Created a
Baronet. |
| 1868 |
S.C. won the Parliamentary
election for West Staffordshire. |
| 1870 |
Helped to start the
the North Staffordshire Permanent Relief fund. |
| 1874 |
retires from
politics. |
| 1875 |
Smith Child founded
the North Staffordshire Incurables Fund. The fund was set up to send
patients on holiday. |
| 1877 |
SC built and
endowed the 'Smith Child' ward at the North Staffordshire Infirmary, the
ward was originally intended for incurable patients but eventually opened
as a children's hospital. |
| 1880 |
Subscribed to the
fund for the relief of victims of the Leycett colliery disaster. |
| 1883 |
Tunstall
clock tower was erected in honour of S.C. |
| 1895 |
Smith Child made
annual contributions to the North Staffordshire Infirmary. As well as
serving as vice-president and then president of the management committee
he was elected a patron in 1895. |
| 1896 |
S.C
died in Stallington Hall on 27th March 1896. |
| 1913 |
In this
year a stained glass window was erected in his memory in Goldenhill
church. S.C. had been a founder member. |
Sir
Smith Child:
"He contributed annually to the Staffordshire Infirmary, served as president
and vice-president of its general management committee and was elected a
patron in 1895. In 1877 he built and endowed the Smith Child ward, originally
intended for incurable patients but eventually opened as a children’s
hospital. Two years earlier he had founded the North Staffordshire Incurables
Fund, for sending . patients on holiday. He also. supported, in Tunstall, the
local Nursing Society and the Samaritan Society, and at Longton the Cottage
Hospital.
His
benefactions extended to other fields. He supported the Tunstall Choral
Society; the Victoria Institute, Tunstall, was built largely as a result of
his efforts and support and accommodated, at various times, a museum, an art
school, a technical school, a high school for girls, a library and a reading
room. Nor were his benefactions confined to Tunstall. He supported the
establishment of the Wedgwood Institute, Burslem, gave £200 to the North
Staffordshire Chamber of Commerce to encourage the teaching of Spanish and Portuguese,
the languages of the expanding pottery markets in South America, and £1,000
towards the establishment of a girls’ industrial school at Lichfield."
Source: People of the Potteries.
Another principal landed Proprietor in Tunstall is Smith Child, Esq., of Newfield, an acting Magistrate of the County, who inherits the estates of the Baddeleys, his ancestors on the female side, who have been seated here for four centuries, at least, and where his paternal grandfather, Admiral Smith Child, (whose mother was Mary Baddeley,) died in 1813, at the advanced age of 83.
The Newfield and other estates belonging to Mr. Thomas Baddeley, were settled by him upon the marriage of his nephew, Captain (afterwards Admiral) Child, with his cousin Margaret Roylance, daughter of Mr. Thomas Roylance, of Townhouse, in Audley, in the year 1764; and by the death of their eldest surviving' son, in his father's
life-time, these estates descended to his son, the present proprietor, during his infancy.
Admiral Child entered the service in 1747, under the auspices of Earl Gower, and as the nautical disciple of Lord Anson. He first went to sea in the Chester, commanded by Sir Richard Spry ; afterwards he entered the Devonshire, Captain Matthew Buckle ; then into the Unicorn, and cruised in the Mediterranean, where he received notice of having obtained his commission, and was ordered to England ; he was then appointed
Junior Lieutenant in the Princess Royal, commanded by Sir Charles Saunders. He served at the sieges of Pondicherry and Louisbourg, and commanded the Europe in the two actions off the Chesapeake, in 1781, with such credit as enabled him to obtain preferment for most of her officers.
The following year his eldest son, Thomas, (a youth of great intrepidity and promise,) perished in the unfortunate Ville de Paris. In 1795, Captain Child took the command of the Commerce de Marseilles, mounting 128 guns,
which sailed on a secret expedition with one thousand troops on board, besides five hundred seamen, and stores and provisions for four months ; but she was found not to be sea worthy, and was obliged to be brought back to port after being a few weeks only at sea, to the very great disappointment of her commander ; as he often mentioned in after-life. Captain Child attained his flag on Valentine's Day, 1799.
He was, during some time previously, the regulating officer of the impress service at Liverpool, and received the honorary freedom of that Borough. After his advancement to the flag, he was not employed in actual service, but resided in Newcastle-under-Lyme for some years ; and, as an honorary member of that Corporation, he was very heartily greeted by a brother Admiral, his late Majesty King William IV., then Duke of Clarence, when he, with the Prince Regent (afterwards George IV.) visited Staffordshire, in
1806.
The family of Child is said to be of Worcestershire extraction, but the Admiral's immediate ancestors, for several generations, had been seated in the Parish of Audley in this County, where they possessed considerable property, which was mostly dissipated by Smith Child, the Admiral's father, who was a man of polished manners, but wasteful in his habits. Once, during a visit to Scotland, (where he went on mercantile business,) he was introduced to and entertained by the Duke of Hamilton, whom he accompanied in one of his hunting excursions ( such as are
described in Sir Walter Scott's Waverley), and being in that country during the expedition of the ill-fated Charles Stuart, in 1745, he was twice arrested, after the defeat of the rebel forces, on suspicion of being the Pretender, to whom he bore a strong resemblance. He travelled from Scotland in company with Lord Glenorchy, who advised him to bring his son up to the Navy, and introduced him to Lord Anson, the Circumnavigator, at that time one of the Lords of the Admiralty, under whose patronage he commenced his career, as we have already stated.
Source:
Ward "The Borough of Stoke-upon-Trent" 1843
see Pedigree of the Family of Child
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