Sir Smith Child | People from Stoke-on-Trent

| index: C | 

Sir Smith Child b.1808 d.1896

[ Web Site Index ]

 

 

great-grandfather:
Smith Child (of Miles Green Audley)
great-grandmother:
Mary Baddeley
grandfather: 
Admiral Smith Child
grandmother:
Margaret Roylance
father: John George Child mother: Elizabeth Parsons

Sir Smith Child

Wife: Sarah née Hill
three children:-
eldest: Smith Hill Child (died age 30)
Elizabeth S. Child

 

 

Sir Smith Child
Sir Smith Child
of Newfield

See also Admiral Smith Child 
see Pedigree of the Family of Child
Child Estates

 

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.

 

inscription on the Tower, Tunstall
THIS TOWER
was erected
by Public Subscription
A. D. 1893
in the Town of his birth
and in the 86th year of his age

IN HONOUR OF
SIR SMITH CHILD BART
A PHILANTHROPIST
who foremost by every good
work by generous gifts and wise
counsel sought to brighten the 
lives of the 

WORKING CLASSES
and by noble Endowment of
Convalescent Homes offered a
priceless boon to
THE SUFFERING POOR

Postcard of Tower Square
Postcard of Tower Square
c.1900 

more on the tower

 

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

 

1881 census:

Dwelling: Stallington Hall
Census Place: Stone, Staffordshire, England

Name

Marr | Age | Sex

  Birthplace Occupation
Smith CHILD  M 73 M Head Tunstall Baronet D.L. And J.P
Sarah CHILD  M 67 F Wife Stone Baronesses
Elizabeth S. CHILD U 39 F  Daur Tunstall  
John HAMMERSLEY M 55 M Servt Buglawton, Cheshire Butler
Ann HAMMERSLEY  M 67 F Servt Audlem, Cheshire Butlers Wife
Henrietta EGGE  U 30 F Servt Holstein, Germany Lady's Maid
Sarah A. PEGG  U 26 F Servt Etwall, Derby Cook
Mary E. EYES  U 25 F Servt Grappenhall, Cheshire Dom Servt
Sarah E. GREAVES U 19 F Servt Colwich, Staffordshire Dom Servt
Louisa M. LOWE  U 20 F  Servt Shiffnal, Shropshire Dom Servt
Ellen HALL  U 15 F Servt Freehay, Staffordshire Dom Servt
William CROSS U 24 M Servt Gnosall, Staffordshire Footman
Thomas SMITH  U 38 M  Servt Sutton Coldfield, Warwick Coachman
Thomas SMITH  15 M  Servt Stone, Staffordshire Coachman Helper (Dom Groom)




01/12/2001