Completed article.
The spouses of John Raphael Smith DNB 1751-1812 and of his daughter Eliza Aders 1785-1857
1. When my great aunt died in 1985, on the back of some small crayon portraits that had long hung in her hall, a note by her great uncle was found, saying the artist was Mrs Aders. I began to research this artist, who at one time hosted a salon in London where writers Wordsworth, Coleridge, Lamb and Blake were among the guests and which introduced art works of the German and Flemish schools to London. After her husband Charles Aders, a wealthy German merchant, went bankrupt, she was reduced to living by her pencil. He was her third husband and she had divorced the first two in Frankfurt under the Napoleonic code which made divorce a lot easier and cheaper than it was in England at that time. Her divorce from her first husband was probably invalid in English law, as she had married him in England, but since it was a shotgun wedding following an elopement or perhaps abduction when she was only sixteen, and her husband had badly mistreated her, this scandal was well hidden or overlooked while she was in affluence.
2. The story of Mrs Aders' father, the artist and engraver John Raphael Smith, makes an interesting echo of his daughter's story (if echoes can be said to travel backwards in time). He married at age seventeen and by his first wife had two children who survived infancy, but after twelve years' marriage he divorced her as she was pregnant by his close friend the engraver David Foret. In England divorces that permitted remarriage were only obtainable by an act of the House of Lords which was an expensive business, so the divorce "of bed and board" was to remove her rights to spend on his account and to have custody of their children. She lived with David Foret until he died in 1811 and probably outlived John Raphael Smith who died in 1812. Smith had two more wives - in all but law and ceremony. Each of them bore him two surviving children. Eliza Aders was the daughter of Emma, his middle wife, who is the mystery I haven't yet solved. I have only vague guesses as to her family, though there is some reason to suppose her maiden name was Johnston. Of John Raphael Smith's six children the two she bore him, Emma and Eliza, had the most distinguished careers. Did she die before he began to live with his third wife? I can't find any record of it. Did she leave him or did he kick her out? His last wife, Hannah Croome outlived him by fifteen years and was buried as Hannah Smith, though they never married (she proved J R Smith's will as Hannah Croome spinster). In fact, when she died in 1827, Henry Crabb Robinson the diarist, a close friend of the Aders', noted the death of Mrs Aders' mother. It's possible, though unlikely, that Eliza Aders actually believed Hannah Croome was her real mother, as she had been only three when Emma departed.
3. John Raphael Smith's father the artist Thomas Smith (DNB c1720-1767) was stated (e.g. in DNB 1st edition) to have been self-taught, but one thing that made me wonder about this was that a Thomas Smith, said to have died in 1719, was a painter of views of country house views, a genre practised by J R Smith's father (see John Harris, The Artist and the Country House p 95-6). Having such a common name, Thomas Smith has so far defeated my attempts to trace his ancestry, and the earliest record I've found of his existence was his marriage at Allestree (near Derby) on 6.8.1740 to Hannah Silvester of St Peter's Derby. Their daughter Sophia was baptised on 17.10.1741 at St Peter's Derby, and their son Thomas Corregio was baptised on 24.7.1742 at St George the Martyr, Queen Square, London. The earliest dated prints of Thomas Smith's work were published in 1743, apparently by himself in partnership with Francis Vivares (DNB 1709-1780). Hannah Silvester had a brother John Silvester and a brother-in-law John Grundy, a butcher and a baker of Lichfield who both left wills, so Thomas Smith's marriage was an alliance of some local substance.
4. Thomas Smith exhibited landscapes at the Society of Artists in London in 1760 and 1761. A catalogue of his collection of prints and drawings was printed for a sale in May 1763 at the Raven, Shrewsbury and re-used for a sale in July 1763 at the George, Sheffield. His son Thomas Corregio Smith was married at St Giles in the Fields, London on 20.12.1763 to Ann Griffiths, and Thomas Charles, son of Thomas Corregio & Ann Smith, was baptised there on 6.9.1764. A Thomas Charles Smith (child) was buried at St Martin in the Fields on 27.9.1764. Thomas Corregio may perhaps have been the Thomas Smith junior, engraver in stone, of Salisbury Court, Fleet St, listed in Thomas Mortimer's Directory of 1763 as winning a premium from the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufacures & Commerce. In 1766 Sophia Smith of Bath (Thomas Smith's oldest daughter) was an honorary exhibitor at The Society of Artists in London of flower and insect paintings. In 1767 she exhibited two miniatures there, her father showed two landscapes (as well as one at the Free Society), and her brother Thomas Corregio exhibited two miniatures from an address at the corner of Newport St, Leicester Fields. Charles Corregio son of Thomas & Ann Smith was baptised at St Anne, Soho on 27.4.1767. Thomas Smith senior died at Hot Wells, Bristol on 5.9.1767 and was buried at St Alkmund's Derby on 11.9.1767. His house in Bridge Gate, Derby was advertised for sale or let in the Derby Mercury of 25.9.1767, and in the issue of 9.10.1767 its sale by auction on 30.10.1767 was announced. It had six good rooms to a floor, outhouses, coach-house, stable, large garden and orchard, summer-house and alcove, "all in very good repair and fit for a gentleman's family".
5. It seems likely that Hannah Smith wanted to release her capital quickly to help set up her two sons, and probably her oldest daughter Sophia, in their professions. John Raphael Smith was by all accounts a linen draper's apprentice, whether in Derby, London or elsewhere. He was perhaps the John Smith apprenticed to Robert Hope, mercer of Derby for 7 years on 6.5.1765 (about his 14th birthday) for a premium of £35, but if so he didn't see up his term, but set up as a linen draper in London. In the Derby Mercury of 26.2.1768 "Thomas Smith, miniature and landskip painter, son of the late Mr Smith, painter in Derby" announced that he was settled near St Michael's Church in Derby and performed coach, sign and house painting, oil and burnished gilding, "as now practised in London", and it seems likely that his younger brother John Raphael was in London by 12.2.1768 attending the auction of his fathers' collection of prints, for on 22.5.1768 he was married at the Savoy Chapel in the Strand to Ann Darlow. Both parties signed their names, and the witnesses were Mary Darlow and William Oakman. The Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser of 15.6.1768 announced that "Last week Mr Smith linendraper in Oxford-road, was married to Miss Darley, of Exeter Court, in the Strand". The fencing master Henry Angelo (DNB 1756-1835) in his Reminiscences (1830) stated in exactly which stall in Exeter Change John Raphael Smith had his shop, while William Paulet Carey (DNB 1759-1839) writing in 1827, said Smith had been two years foreman in a linen draper's on Ludgate Hill. Carey had been a friend of J R Smith's but probably not from such an early period as Angelo had been. Exeter Court was next to Exeter Change, and the boundaries of the Savoy precinct may at that time have crossed the Strand to include some part of them. Certainly some of J R Smith's early prints from 1772-4 were published by him at 4, Exeter Court.
6. Both Ann Darlow and J R Smith were only 17 when they married. She had been baptised aged 28 days at St John, Wapping on 25.3.1751, daughter of Edward Darlow, wheelwright of Nightingale Lane, Wapping and Mary his wife. Her father Edward Darlow of Allhallows the Great had married at St George's Mayfair on 18.3.1749 Mary Aglin of St Mary le Strand. Arthur Aglin, perhaps her father, was a smith in Swan Yard, St Mary le Strand who voted in the 1749 Westminster election, and appeared in the ratebooks at Swan Yard till 1752, and then from 1754 to 1760 was replaced by Edward Darlow. John son of Edward & Mary Darlow was baptised at St Leonard Shoreditch on 15.6.1752, Mary daughter of Edward & Mary Darlow of Swan Yard was baptised at St Mary le Strand on 30.11.1755 and buried there on 19.2.1758, and Edward Daniel son of Edward & Mary Darlow of Swan Yard was baptised there on 15.3.1758. Edward Darlow their father was buried at Allhallows the Great in 1761. He had been born in 1728, the eldest son of John Darlow and Elizabeth his first wife, the said John Darlow having married secondly Jane Wight in 1743. John Darlow's death was announced in the London Evening Post of 18.4.1767, "the parish clerk of Allhallows Dowgate, and a wheelwright in considerable business; a man somewhat droll in his way, and who took a pride to have his sneer even with his acquaintance". His widowed daughter-in-law Mary Darlow filed a suit on behalf of her son John as the heir of John Darlow deceased against Jane Darlow his widow (and her son John) on 22.8.1768; and Jane Darlow was in Kings Bench and Marshalsea prisons till released on 15.6.1769 by the Insolvent Debtors Act. The suit continued in Chancery (Nat Arch C 12/1024/20) and the defendants (Jane Darlow and her son) alleged that they hadn't known John Darlow senior had an older heir, as Mary Darlow and her son had left the country in the years before his death. The Chancery records also noted on 13.12.1773 that the plaintiff John Darlow son of Edward & Mary Darlow was now 21 years of age.
7. On 24.3.1769 Thomas son of Thomas Corregio & Ann Smith was baptised at St Michael's Derby, and a Thomas Smith infant was buried there 13.4.1769. Their son Charles survived to at least age 20 as he was mentioned in the will of his grandmother Hannah Smith dated 6.8.1787. Thomas Corregio Smith exhibited a miniature at the Society of Artists in 1769 from Mr Martin's, Dean St, Soho - this was the Scottish portrait painter David Martin (DNB 1737-1797). On 8.5.1769 there was published a mezzotint engraving of the Corsican leader Pascal Paoli (DNB 1725-1807) after Henry Benbridge engraved by 'John Smith', which has generally been attributed to John Raphael Smith as his first published work. I'm inclined to doubt it was his, as not until 1771 were any dated prints published as engraved by 'J R Smith', and there were other John Smith engravers active at the time. There were two other undated mezzotints from about this time, one of Smack the Coachman after Robert Pyle engraved by 'Smith', and one of Lady Waldegrave after Joshua Reynolds engraved by 'J Smith' and printed for Robert Sayer at 53 Fleet St, and these have also been attributed to John Raphael Smith. John Smith printseller of the Hogarth's Head, Cheapside 1750-1792 of the Loriner's Company, linen draper 1776, printseller 1782 and 1792 (see Ian Maxted, The London Book Trades 1775-1800), was perhaps the John Smith who appeared in politician John Wilkes' (DNB 1725-1797) diary as one of the brethren of the Cheshire Cheese and in Robert Dighton's (DNB 1751-1814) print "Court of Equity". In 1752 he sold his prints through Sayer's shop, and according to Timothy Clayton in The English Print 1688-1802, he had a son who was apprenticed to Robert Sayer. There was also a John Smith copperplate printer of Stationers Company at the Kings Head, Shoe Lane in 1776, 1782 and 1792; a Mr Smith, engraver of Kirby St, Hatton Garden, died (Craftsman 22.4.1775); a Mr Smith, engraver of 15 Dukes Court, Drury Lane, retiring to the country on account of ill health (Daily Advertiser 8.12.1775); a Mr Smith engraver and printseller of Dukes Court, St Martin's Lane in 1789; and a Mr Smith engraver at John's Coffee House, Cornhill (Gazetteer 15.2.1782). But none of these were known to be engravers in mezzotint, so perhaps these three prints were J R Smith's work.
8. The first child of John Raphael and his wife Ann was John born on 24.11.1769, who died within the month. This information was on a slip of paper belonging to John Raphael's granddaughter Susan Martha Smith which was copied by Julia Frankau and published in her book about J R Smith in 1902. The dates given on it correspond well with the baptism and burial records I have found, and it is perhaps the only half-reliable piece of information in Mrs Frankau's colourful and imaginative biography. But it was also misleading as it implied that all J R Smith's eleven children were by Hannah Croome, his last wife (I prefer to use the term "wife" without regard to the marriage laws). I doubt if John ever got baptised, likewise Anna Sophia, their next child, who according to that slip of paper, was born on 26.11.1770 and also died within the month. Then it was 28 months before their next child was born.
9. From 1.5.1771 a steady stream of dated mezzotints (five in 1771) were published with the name J R Smith as engraver, after various artists (including some of his own design), and by a variety of publishers. The first was a portrait of Miss Sophia Weston after Thomas Worlidge (DNB 1700-1766), published by Mrs Ashley of Gt Queen St. Mary Ashley was the widow of Thomas Worlidge and still lived in his house at 61 Gt Queen St. She exhibited her own works, (some probably copies of her husbands'), in a variety of media, including crayons, ink, models and needlework, at the Society of Artists and the Free Society from 1765 to 1772. One thing the Worlidges had in common with J R Smith's parents was christening their children with the names of famous European artists; they seem to have been the first two English families to do this. The Smiths baptised Corregio 1742, Raphael 1751, Rosalba 1755 & Leonardo 1756, while the Worlidges baptised Rosalba 1752, Corregio 1756 & Rubens 1759, which suggests to me that the two families would have known each other quite well. Thomas Worlidge had died on 23.9.1766 and his widow married, at St Giles in the Fields on 6.3.1768, James Ashley junior, son of James Ashley, keeper of the London Punch House who had been a good friend of Worlidge's. James Ashley junior was buried 30.11.1771 at Bunhill Fields and his will (PCC 1771) left all to his wife Mary. The rate books for Gt Queen St show that Worlidge's house had been occupied from 1746 to 1764 by the artist Thomas Hudson (DNB 1703-1779) one of whose pupils had been Sir Joshua Reynolds (DNB 1723-1792). From the evidence of some seemingly genuine letters written by Reynolds when in Europe in 1748-1750, obtained by Anthony Pasquin (DNB 1754-1818) and published by him in 1796, Reynolds had a flirtatious friendship with a Miss Weston whose address was Gt Queen St. I haven't been able to identify this person, though according to Pasquin she died in Fulham after Reynolds' death. There's no reason to think her first name was Sophia, and Worlidge's picture may even have been a portrayal of the fictional Sophia Western from Tom Jones by Henry Fielding (DNB 1707-1754). Another mezzotint by J R Smith published in 1771 was a portrait of Lydia, the 16-year-old daughter of the artist Nathaniel Hone (DNB 1718-1784) from a painting by her father, with a flattering quote from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Given that J R Smith was to achieve his greatest fame for his mezzotints after Reynolds from 1774, and that Hone's painting The Conjuror, a blatant attack on Reynolds, was submitted to (and rejected by) the Royal Academy in 1775, the possible connection of Sophia Weston to Reynolds might suggest an ambivalent assault by J R Smith on the fame of Reynolds, who was then the President of the Royal Academy and the most successful artist in England. Along with these two prints celebrating female beauty, two other mezzotints engraved by J R Smith and published in 1771, were "drolls" or satires on marriage (The Jealous Husband, and O Rare Matrimony) and the fifth was a portrait of a man called Jonathan Britain, who had (probably falsely) confessed to arson at Portsmouth dockyard in the Catholic cause (Whisperer 2.11.1771, John Latimer, Annals of Bristol in the Eighteenth Century).
10. J R Smith's 16-year-old sister Frances Rosalba was buried at St Alkmund's, Derby (as Rosetta) on 23.6.1771, and his older sister Sophia died on 17.2.1772 at Bath. She left a will dated 24.10.1771 and proved at Lichfield in 1790 in which she mentioned her infirm state of health and left her brothers Thomas Corregio and John Raphael items of artist's equipment such as a painting desk and plaster hands. She was buried at St James, Bath on 22.2.1772, and two days before there was published by J R Smith and J Basnett of Bath a mezzotint engraved by J R Smith of Miss Coghlan after Thomas Gainsborough (DNB 1727-1788), who was then living in Bath. From the Bath Journal of 24.2.1772 it appears that Sophia Smith had been living with her mother in St James Street, Bath, and J R Smith seems to have taken the opportunity of her funeral to arrange the publication of his print. In the next year (1772) there were 7 dated mezzotints published with the name of J R Smith as engraver (including 3 portraits after Hugh Douglas Hamilton DNB 1740-1808 published by Samuel Hooper of 25 Ludgate Hill), and 6 dated mezzotints with the name of J R Smith as publisher (of which two were engraved by James Wilson). On 16.9.1772 his mezzotint of Signora Maria Giovanna Felice after Ann Forbes (1745-1834 Dictionary of Women Artists ed. Delia Gaze) was published with a dedication that was later effaced "Dedicated to the Pope as an Admirer of the above Lady by his devoted Servant John Raphael Smith" which, like the Jonathan Britain print, he may have seen as an appeal to anti-Catholic sentiment. Anne Forbes' letters (in the National Library of Scotland) included this report dated 13.10.1772 "prints of my brother's Italian girl...as a specimen of Mr Smith's abilityes, I am glad to find everybody here approves of it. I had no thoughts of ever having any of my works ingrav'd, had he not beg'd me as a favour to allow him to ingrave that head which had struck his fancy at the exhibition. Had you not been so anxious to have down little Ann he would have been very happy to have made a print of her, but as it would have kept her three months longer from you I did not like mention it to you, however I regret it now as he has done the Italian girl so well". Signora Felice was an opera singer in Italy, where Anne Forbes had been with her brother John, and little Ann was a sister who was staying with her in London. Given that two of J R Smith's daughters became artists, that he later took two female apprentices, and that the only two books devoted to his work have been written by women, the part played by female artists Mrs Ashley, Sophia Smith and Ann Forbes in launching his career is of interest and maybe suggests something about his personal charm.
11. Smith's first print after an old master was of Count Wallenstein by Gerard Dou (1613-1675), published by himself at 4, Exeter Court, Strand on 25.11.1772 (the first time he had given an address), and was dedicated to Dr Bragg by his particularly obliged servant J R Smith, though the painting was in the possession of Mr Bonnell. (For Robert Bragge see General Advertiser 25.2.1750 and many ads for art sales through to Daily Advertiser 9.1.1778 and his will PCC 1777). Mr Bonnell was either Henry Bonnell of Duke St, St James, see Gazetteer 24.2.1774 & 8.6.1774, or James Bonnell of Spring Gardens, see his will PCC 1774 and Daily Advertiser 17.8.1774. These two art collectors were apparently not closely related, (see James Bonnell's family monument in Monou chapel, Walthamstow church). On 15.4.1773 J R Smith published at 4, Exeter Court his mezzotint of Sir Joseph Banks (DNB 1743-1820) after Benjamin West (DNB 1738-1820). This print was then shown at the Society of Artists, along with two miniatures by his brother Thomas Corregio, whose address was at Mr Pohl's, near Broad St, Soho. On 6.5.1773 the Middlesex Journal noted J R Smith's print, with the comment "A very faithful copy of this sober philosopher in masquerade". West's picture was first shown that month at the Royal Academy, an unusual example of a print being published before the painting was exhibited. The next year (1774) the Society of Artists' show was at their new room near Exeter Exchange, right next door to Smith, and he exhibited five mezzotints, one each after Joshua Reynolds, Nathaniel Hone, Benjamin West, Francis Wheatley (DNB 1747-1801) and George Carter (DNB 1737-1794), while his brother Thomas Corregio exhibited two more miniatures. Angelica Rosalba, daughter of John Raphael Smith & Ann, was born on 26.3.1773 and baptised on 18.4.1773 at St Mary le Strand, and her brother John Rubens was born on 23.1.1775 and baptised there 2.2.1775. In that spring of 1775 Smith moved from Exeter Court to number 10 in the newly built Batemans Buildings, Soho. He continued showing at the Society of Artists until 1777, and in 1776 showed five after Reynolds, one after Hone, and one from his own design. No more children (according to the family record Mrs Frankau published) were born to Smith until 1783. Another of Smith's sisters, Anne, five years older than him, was buried at St Alkmund's Derby on 6.2.1776. On 20.3.1776 for a premium of ten guineas, Smith took on an apprentice, William Ward (DNB 1766-1826), who was to be his principal assistant for many years. (For a snapshot of Smith's neighbours see Batemans Buildings in London Addresses dataset on this website).
12. The trial of Ann Smith for adultery 13.3.1780 was published in 1793 as part of The Cuckold's Chronicle (readable in Eighteenth Century Collections Online), only slightly tailored from the court records (London Met Arch DL/C/282 & DL/C/559/72-3). It went unnoticed by art historians until recently, when searchable online databases became available. When I wrote to the late Ellen D'Oench about it she had already seen it, but too late to include in her excellent book on J R Smith Copper Into Gold (1999) which I recommend as it says a lot more about Smith's art than I am discussing here. Ellen D'Oench was unaware that there was a divorce in English law that didn't permit remarriage (also sometimes called a legal separation), and was reluctant to believe me when I said that all his later children were illegitimate, saying that Smith was a "gentleman" who wouldn't have permitted that. The concept of gentleman was interestingly illustrated in Henry Angelo's Reminiscenses where J R Smith was said to have turned away the artist George Morland (DNB 1763-1804) - who was "averse to polite society" - because Smith had an appointment with a "gentleman" (the actor John Bannister DNB 1760-1836). Anyway the trial revealed various facts about Smith - his neighbour in Batemans Buildings, David Walker - his apprentice John Pettit (QV* in Artists & Engravers dataset) - his intimate friend the engraver David Foret, whom Ann Smith had met shortly after her marriage - and his stay in Warwick Castle in the summer of 1779 making plates from the Earl of Warwick's pictures (a mezzotint by Smith after a painting by Anthony Van Dyck DNB 1599-1641 in the possession of the Earl of Warwick was published 10.11.1779, and another of the Countess of Warwick after George Romney DNB 1734-1802 was published 3.3.1780). The chief drama of the story was Smith, David Walker and Foret's landlord Henry Brunswick creeping upstairs at night with a candle to catch Foret and Ann Smith in bed together, apparently a necessary piece of evidence. Ann Smith did not attend her trial or put up any defence, which is understandable given her pregnant condition and the public shaming. Although the story is convincing, I have wondered whether Foret, Smith and his wife connived at the divorce, because I suspected Smith already had a partner he wanted to replace Ann Smith with.
13. David Foret may have been baptised on 17.1.1750 at Dysart, Fife son of Thomas Forret and Isabel Whyte (or less likely on 29.3.1754 at Fordoun, Kincardine son of David Forret). He may have met Smith as a connection of David Martin (see above) who came from Anstruther Easter, a few miles from Dysart. He was one of many engravers in London whose name was never inscribed on any known plate. He did insure himself (SunFire 1784) as engraver of 3 Crown Court, Dean St and (SunFire 1787) as engraver of 8 Grafton St, Soho. At the divorce trial Smith's apprentice John Pettit stated that Foret was a mezzotint engraver in Little Compton St, Soho. There was Betty baptised 23.4.1780 at St James Piccadilly born 28.3.1780 dau of John & Ann Smith, but more likely Ann Smith's child went unbaptised and was the Anna Foret who married Thomas Isatt at St George Hanover Sq on 31.10.1802, and was mentioned in David Foret's will as Anna Isatt, Ann Smith's daughter, and was listed in the 1841 census as dressmaker aged 60 and in the 1861 census as nurse aged 80, both at Greenwich. David Foret's will (London Consistory Court 23.7.1811) was dated 10.2.1808 of 8, Grafton St, engraver, leaving £50 payable at his decease from the Centumvirate Benefit Society at the Queen's Head, Duke's Court, Drury Lane and all his other effects, to Ann Smith the wife of John Raphael Smith and then to her daughter Anna Isatt. It was proved by Ann Smith of 3, Porter St, Newport Market. David Forett of Porter St was buried 11.7.1811 at St Anne Soho. The witnesses to the will were William Peartree (the second husband of Ann Smith's oldest daughter Angelica Rosalba) and J A Wright (the husband of John Raphael Smith's youngest sister Katherine Felicia, an attorney of Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire), which suggests that although after his divorce J R Smith took legal custody of the two young children, at least some of his family kept in touch with his divorced wife.
14. A typescript in New York Public Library and the Library of Congress, by Edward Smith, one of the descendants of J R Smith's eldest son John Rubens Smith, dated about 1930, is an important source based on a mixture of John Rubens' papers, family stories, and research done in London. It wrongly assumed that an Ann Smith buried 13.1.1778 at Savoy Chapel (where J R Smith was married) must have been John Rubens' mother. It also stated that John Prothero, who had married Mrs Smith's sister Mary Darlow, took over J R Smith's linen drapery. I couldn't find this marriage, and though Ann Darlow had a sister Mary she seems to have died aged 2, and I didn't find any other sisters. The identity of Mrs Prothero derived from Henry Bromley's Catalogue of 1793, to which John Chaloner Smith in 1878-1884 added the query that she may have been Ann Smith's sister, and Julia Frankau in 1902 added that Prothero had taken over Smith's drapery business. The next piece of the story in the typescript I take to have been based on John Rubens Smith's memories. At age about seven he was sent, at the suggestion of his stepmother, "whose given name was Emma, and whose maiden surname, there is some evidence was Johnstone" to a boarding school in Scotland kept by a Presbyterian clergyman, where he was ill-fed and ill-taught. Then one day he was rescued from drowning while swimming by "passing equestrians" who "proved to be friends of his father, and must have been intimate with the family, for they were able to corroborate his identity by a mole on his shoulder, a congenital mark running through some generations". He told his rescuers about conditions in the school and they took him back with them to London. He apparently in later life sometimes charged his stepmother with having sent him to Scotland to get rid of him, and with lack of care when he got smallpox after his return to London. A correspondent of mine from New Zealand who is descended from J R Smith by six generations told me she has a shoulder mark that her daughter and grandchildren also have.
15. The reason to think Emma's maiden name was Johnston, which is given in Ellen D'Oench's book (1999), and which I had spotted before reading either her book or Edward Smith's typescript, was an untitled portrait mezzotint engraved and drawn by J R Smith and published by him on 20.1.1783, listed in J R Smith's catalogue (published about 1798) as Miss Johnston, and in the catalogue (published 1793) of prints collected by Georg Friedrich Brandes (1709-1791 of Hanover) as Mrs Smith (see illustration below). Brandes had met Smith in London in the 1780s and had published in Germany reviews of Smith's works. Ellen D'Oench also found two impressions of an etching in the British Museum Print Room, scratched "J R Smith", of a lady sleeping in a chair with a face like that in the print of Miss Johnston. On the reverse of one of them in pencil was written "Mrs Smith" and on the other "Loughton". I discovered another clue, which was that when Eleanor Susan Ley, only child of J R Smith's daughter Eliza, died in a lodging-house in Brighton in 1867, her certificate was registered by her landlady on the day after her death as "Ellen Leech, widow of unknown" and then corrected five days later in the presence of Harriet M Johnston and Constance M Johnston. These were either the wife and daughter, or two daughters, of the merchant Edward Johnston (DNB 1804-1876) whose father Francis Johnston 1757-1828 worked in the Navy Pay Office and was "of Scottish border extraction". Through the Oxford DNB I tried to contact the contributor of the article on Edward Johnston, called Robert G Greenhill, to ask about his sources (A Johnston Family Record 1938, and P.J.Johnston, A Johnston Family History, unpublished MS, 1957, neither of which I could find in any catalogues) but received no reply. If Smith's Miss Johnston was of their family, she was quite likely airbrushed out of the family history anyway, for living with another woman's husband. There was also a SunFire insurance record of 1778 for Susanna Johnston of Carlisle House, Soho Square widow, on her household goods in the now dwelling house only of Mr Wells, engraver, at 12 Kirbin St, Hatton Garden; a SunFire record of 1786 for Susanna Johnston, widow of 11 Fountain Court, Strand; and a will PCC 1792 of Susanna Johnstone widow of 6, Cecil Court, Strand, dau of the late Lt. James Johnstone of Lockerbie, will dated 18.1.1792. The significance of Carlisle House, next to Batemans Buildings, should appear below. Shusan dau of James Johnston and Margaret Henderson was baptised 2.2.1752 at Moffat, Dumfries (Scottish wives and widows would often keep their father's name), but I found no sign of an Emma in her family. The Scottish borders were full of Johnstons or Johnstones, but the name Emma was very rare in Scotland at that time. Apart from the daughter born in 1760 of a Glasgow schoolmaster called Pillance, I could only find one other Emma of any surname born before 1790 in Scotland, and that was Emma daughter of John Smith of Castlemilk, Iron Yatt, bapt 10.10.1780 at St Mungo, Dumfriesshire. The mother's name was not given, but first daughters were often given their mother's name. The Scotch plot thickened. According to the family record, J R Smith's next child was Emma born 17.9.1783, and then Eliza born 14.1.1785. There are two copies in different hands of the baptism registers of St Marylebone, J R Smith's parish after he moved at midsummer 1781 from Batemans Buildings to 83 Oxford Street. One of them only recorded Eliza dau of John & Emma Smith baptised 22.2.1785, born 14.1.1785. The other had the same entry, plus at the bottom of the next page at the end of February baptisms was a separate note "Baptisms to be enterd at their proper date Omitted, 1781 Dec 28th Anna Jane daur of ye Revd Jno Vardill & Ann, b 19th Novr ult, 1783 Oct 20 Emma Smith of John & Emma b 17th Sepr". Anna Jane Vardill (DNB 1781-1852 not in book version as recently added online) was the daughter of John Vardill, a New York professor and pamphleteer who supported the British government at the time of the American Revolution. He had married Agnes Birtwhistle at Skipton in Yorkshire on 25.8.1778. Note that the register gave Anna Jane's mother's name as Ann, not Agnes, though in Agnes Vardill's will PCC 1826 she referred to Anna Jane as her daughter. John Vardill was attacked bitterly by supporters of the American cause (Public Ledger 20.9.1775, 22.12.1778) and in his own memorial to the British government asking for compensation he claimed to have intercepted enemy letters in several instances by bribing, persuading, or betraying acquaintances, including a mistress of Edward Bancroft (DNB 1744-1821). He was also eulogised, especially by his daughter, as almost a saint. The Vardills were good friends of Henry Crabb Robinson (DNB 1775-1867) who was also close to J R Smith's daughter Eliza Aders, and when John Vardill was buried at St Marylebone on 26.1.1811 it was in "Mr Smith's vault". Vardill seems to me the sort of man who could have used his influence to insert stuff in a register. Even if there was something to my suspicions, it would be strange to persuade your daughter she was three years younger than she really was, so even if the Emma born in 1780 in Scotland was J R Smith's daughter, it would seem more likely that she died before a second Emma was born. (So I build up a pack of cards and knock it down). Another odd clue is that in the year 1789-90 a Society of Arts silver medal for a drawing after Veronese was awarded to a Miss Emma Smith. I couldn't find any other Emma Smith, but six (or even nine if she was born in 1780) was an early age to be winning prizes.
16. JR Smith's mezzotint shown below (after his own chalk drawing now in the Victoria and Albert Museum) was called by Ellen D'Oench " one of the eighteenth century's most vivid prostitute compositions" but she also acknowledged that it "avoided the more obvious signals of the women's profession" and went on to ask "Despite their profession, Smith seems to suggest, might they be mistaken for their betters?" Why then did she assume that the women in this drawing were prostitutes? The Promenades at Carlisle House ran every Sunday from 21.5.1780 until 17.6.1781, when they were banned from Sunday by Act of Parliament, though a weak attempt to revive them on weekdays was made the following winter. Two eyewitness accounts (by William Hickey and Samuel Curwen) of those Sunday promenades survive and make it clear that they were popular with aristocrats as well as the "demi-monde", entrance being only 3 shillings including refeshments, (alcohol apparently not available). Ellen D'Oench's belief that Carlisle House was no longer fashionable by the time of Smith's print was based on David Alexander's comment in a 1980 exhibition catalogue, which in turn was based on the assumption that the names of the women in Smith's print, as given in Henry Bromley's 1793 Catalogue, were those of "women of the town". One good reason for thinking that, was that Smith had issued in 1777 a set of six prints of women who were more clearly from the "demi-monde", and that Bromley listed one of them, Miss Montague, as Harriet Montague, and also named one of the women in the Promenade as Harriet Montague. The seated woman in Promenade does indeed seem to me to resemble the print of Miss Montague (see illustrations below for comparison). Bromley listed all the women in the 1777 set of six, and those in the Promenade, under "Gentlewomen", and we have no way of knowing where he got the names of those in Promenade from, twelve years after the event. Two of the names, Lucy Haswell and Maria Townley, correspond to those of real women of "good reputation", one a girl of 17, daughter of Admiral Robert Haswell, and the other a mother of five children, wife of James Townley of Doctors' Commons, and I could find no evidence for any of the names (other than Montague) belonging to courtesans mentioned elsewhere. The Promenade print was the only one where Bromley named the portraits in a "conversation piece" of several figures, though he only named the females. It was also unusual in being the most expensive print in Smith's own catalogue (c.1798), and as D'Oench also said, it was "charged with a suggestion of sexual foreplay seldom seen in English art". John Chaloner Smith in his British Mezzotinto Portraits (1878-1884) repeated the names in Bromley, and attempted (as queries) to identify three of the four male figures. Whether this was pure guesswork we can't tell, but David Alexander in the 1980 exhibition catalogue felt that Chaloner Smith's identifying the man in hat standing right as John Raphael Smith himself, was possibly correct. The earliest portrait we have of Smith otherwise was in Rowlandson's caricature "Smithfield Sharpers" of 1787, he seems to have put on weight, but the intense gaze is similar (judge for yourself below). Also below see the portrait of George Morland (DNB 1763-1804), whom Chaloner Smith identified with the man in hat seated left, though he would then have only been 17 and still apprenticed to his father. But my own interpretation of the Promenade (admittedly very speculative) is that the man on the right was indeed John Raphael Smith, and the two women standing in the centre were his first wife, Ann, on the right, and his second wife, Emma, on the left, with the implication that Ann had perhaps introduced Emma to her husband, and/or perhaps acquiesced in their relationship. Once again, compare the illustrations below, including the women's hairstyles and hats. The double portrait by J R Smith of Les Deux Amis (1778) was listed by Bromley (not saying which was which) as Smith's first wife with Mrs Prothero (see above two paragraphs up).
illustration below: Promenade at Carlisle House, drawn and engraved by John Raphael Smith, published 1.12.1781, (cross-section)
below: 1. George Morland 2. Miss Montague 3. Miss Johnston 4. Ann Smith and friend 5. John Raphael Smith
17. After their daughters Emma and Eliza mentioned above, the next child of John Raphael Smith and Emma to be baptised was George Willmot on 28.6.1786 at Willesden. In the list in Frankau's book he was called Edward Willmot born 12.6.1786 and died at 17 weeks old. Fortune Gate, where Smith leased a "country box", was in Willesden parish, and the Willesden ratebooks show he was there from May 1785 to May 1787. The boy was possibly the Edward Smith buried at St Marylebone on 24.8.1786, which would make him only 10 weeks old, otherwise I haven't found his burial record. In January 1787 Smith moved his shop from 83 Oxford Street to 31 King Street, Covent Garden, and on 28.5.1787 the following ad appeared in the World newspaper: "Country House with a small, but well stocked garden, to lett for about three quarters of a year, with a renewal of a three years lease, if desired, at the expiration of that term. A commodious House, consisting of an excellent parlour, a small hall and kitchen, five chambers, and very convenient out-houses; with coach-house, stabling for four horses, a good cow-house, and about five acres of land in the highest condition; the Garden quite full of the most useful and desirable things. Situation about five miles from Oxford-street. Enquire at No. 31 King-street, Covent-garden." In July 1787 Smith and some friends went to Paris, and while they were away his premises in King-street were among those listed as splendidly illuminated for the Prince of Wales' birthday (Morning Chronicle 14.8.1787). On 3.11.1787 Smith's mother Hannah was buried at St Alkmund's Derby. J R Smith and his children were left about £300 out of her personal estate sworn at under £1000. Smith's brother Thomas Corregio exhibited miniatures at the Royal Academy between 1783 and 1788, and published an engraving after Thomas Rowlandson (DNB 1757-1827) from 6 Wardour St and an engraving by Charles Howard Hodges (DNB 1764-1837) of John Wolcot (DNB 1738-1819) from 35 New Bond St. Hodges was J R Smith's pupil and Rowlandson and Wolcot his 'cronies', so it may be that Thomas Corregio was hanging on his younger brother's coat-tails. The next child of John Raphael and Emma was baptised Leonardo at St Paul's Covent Garden on 22.3.1788 and buried at St Marylebone on 8.5.1788, which fits with the list in Frankau's book (Leonardo born 14.2.1788 died 11 weeks old). On the day of his burial an ad appeared in the World "Wanted A child to Wet Nurse, by a young married woman, near Kensington; she will be recommended in the strongest terms, by the parents of a child that she has had the care of. Address at No. 31 King-street, Covent-garden". Whether J R Smith's children were wet-nursed as a matter of course, as was the practice in many well-off families, or whether Emma was too ill to nurse her son, this is the last clue to her existence I have found, as I couldn't find a burial, and J R Smith's next child Selina, born on 18.6.1790, was baptised on 11.8.1790 at St Paul's Covent Garden of John Raphael Smith & Hannah. Unless (as seems to me unlikely, the change being too sudden) she was the Miss J-hn-t-n of No. 6 Church Court, St Martins Lane advertised in the 1788 edition of Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies (a list of prostitutes), which, besides praising her greatly, added "Her dialect does not tell us she is a native of Scotland, tho' her father, who is an half pay officer, yet resides there".
18. At some point between 1788 and 1790 J R Smith must have begun to live with Hannah Croome. In his will of 1812 Smith called her "late of Dursley, Gloucestershire", so she was probably the Hannah dau of Edward & Mary Croome baptised there on 7.2.1757. Edward Croome of Dursley had married Mary Morgan at Stinchcombe on 23.3.1753, and Mary Morgan was baptised at Dursley on 30.11.1729 daughter of Samuel & Mary. The will of Samuel Morgan of Dursley, dated 23.12.1776, mentioned his son Samuel and his daughters Mary Croome, Elizabeth Morgan and Hester Morgan, and his premises the New Bell Inn. A Mary Croom was buried at Dursley on 1.5.1792 and on 26.5.1792 Hester Morgan, the surviving executrix of Samuel Morgan, proved his will at Gloucester. The Land Tax books for Dursley listed Messrs Croome & Morgan's, (occupiers: themselves) in 1780 to 1789, Mrs Croome, (occupier: herself) in 1790, then no more Croomes from 1792. Whether J R Smith met Hannah at Dursley or in London, what we do know is he couldn't offer to marry her. The diary of Henry Crabb Robinson recorded that on 10.12.1820 Anna, the third wife of Basil Montagu (DNB 1770-1851), who had met her husband at J R Smith's house in 1805 or 1806, (and who may have been related to Smith through her mother Ann, daughter of James Smith of Halifax, Yorks), told him that Smith "was profuse and profligate, generous and high-minded. He had a wife living when he married the present Mrs Smith. And therefore all the present family are bastards. Mrs S was a worthy woman but he hated her. She was economical and cold and cunning - his virtues and vices all in the opposite direction."
19. The General Evening Post of 12.3.1789, reporting the illuminations to celebrate the King's recovery, said "Mr Smith, the engraver, had an elegant transparency of Britannia holding out a medallion of the King, with the words 'Britons Rejoice'." On 1.4.1789 J R Smith took two female apprentices. One was Caroline Kirkley, the 17-year-old daughter of Sir Joshua Reynolds' servant Ralph Kirkley. She later set up as an independent artist, but in 1804 had a daughter by Ralph Cockburn 1779-1821, an engraver seven years younger than her who found a job as curator of the Dulwich picture gallery. Although she left a will when she died in 1830 as Caroline Cockburn, in the Inland Revenue notes to Ralph Cockburn's will she was noted as 'stranger' and her daughter as 'natural daughter', on the information of Ralph's brother David. Her daughter Caroline wasn't baptised until she was 17, shortly before Ralph Cockburn's death. The other apprentice was the 20-year-old Ann Probyn, daughter of a Birmingham gunmaker. When she married John Wadsworth, a ship and insurance broker of Bishopsgate in 1797, J R Smith was one of the witnesses. Her will of 1831 proved in 1843 mentioned her prints and drawings, and lamented that all her children had died before her. On 30.12.1789 J R Smith took on another apprentice, 14-year-old Barton Pym, one of the three illegitimate children of William Pym, (died 1785) surgeon of Edmonton and St Paul's Churchyard, London, by his servant Ann Cosham. Pym later exhibited miniatures at the Royal Academy, until in 1806 he joined the army and died at Gibraltar in 1814, Captain in the 60th regiment, 8th batallion which consisted mostly of Dutch, German and Polish soldiers. On 30.6.1790 J R Smith's only surviving sister, Katherine Felicia, married James Alexander Wright attorney of Chapel-en-le-Frith at Duffield, Derbyshire. Not long after Selina's baptism at Covent Garden, J R Smith's eldest daughter Angelica Rosalba was married there on 27.9.1790 to Charles Frederick Roberts. One of the witnesses was Ann Probyn. C F Roberts had been born on 27.8.1769 and baptised at St George Hanover Square on 10.7.1770 son of John & Margaret Roberts. He was insured as an engraver of 17, Hanover St, Long Acre (SunFire 4.1.1791) and exhibited from 14, Hanover St, Long Acre at the Society of Artists in 1791 a Portrait of a Country Lady. In Henry Angelo's Reminiscences, discussing the private theatre at Wargrave (which ran from 1789 to 1792) of Richard Barry (DNB 1769-1793), Earl of Barrymore, he wrote, "if I can depend on my recollection, the scene painter was Scot, the son-in-law of John Raphael Smith, who was much employed in painting decorations for private theatricals". This must have been C F Roberts, who from 1794 to 1798 was assistant scene painter at Drury Lane Theatre (British Library, Egerton MSS). Angelo can be forgiven for confusing C F Roberts with B F Scott, since Benjamin Foot Scott engraved and published on 1.10.1791 a mezzotint after J R Smith of A Fencer (Henry Angelo), from 18 Broad Court, Long Acre, and baptised a son on 29.8.1793 at St Martin in the Fields as Benjamin Raphael Scott. Sophia dau of Charles Frederick & Angelica Rosalba Roberts was born on 18.6.1792 and baptised at St Martin in the Fields on 7.7.1792. C F Roberts was listed in Holden's Directory of 1799 at Charles St, Covent Garden, but the Covent Garden ratebooks note that he left about Xmas 1798 with the forwarding address c/o Mr Glover, 8 Holborn Alley, off Castle St. Holden's supplement for 1801 noted a Charles Roberts, stationer & printseller, at 8 Upper Castle St, Leicester Square, but from there on he became hard to trace. He had presumably died by June 1822 when Angelica Rosalba Roberts married William Peartree, a working goldsmith, at St Mary Islington, but she had been long living with Peartree, their oldest child, Louisa Elizabeth Angelica, having been born on 27.4.1806.
20. To return to J R Smith, in the Morning Post and Daily Advertiser of 14.11.1791 appeared an ad "Hunting Box to Let. In the hamlet of Hook, three miles from Kingston, with about two acres of ground, consisting of an Orchard, more than fifty of the choicest Apple & Pear Trees in their full prime. A Kitchen Garden, and Plat before the House, together with a new Chaise-house, and stable for three horses. It would suit any gentleman that hunted with Lord Derby, being within four miles of the kennel. For particulars, enquire of John Raphael Smith, No.31, King-street, Covent-garden; or R. Lewin, Turf-Tavern, Grosvenor Place." J R Smith's next child, Carolina was born 10.1.1793 and baptised 13.1.1793 at St Paul's, Covent Garden dau of John Raphael & Hannah, and according to the family record, died the following June. A Carolina Smith, infant was buried at Beccles St Michael, Suffolk on 5.4.1794, which could have been her if she had been sent to the country to be nursed. Bungay, next to Beccles, was the home town of the engraver Henry Kingsbury (1753-1806), a colleague of J R Smith's since the 1770s. Smith's last child (the sixth to survive infancy) was Raphael Caesar Robert, born 6.12.1796 and baptised 31.1.1797 at St Paul's, Covent Garden. He may have been named after Smith's friend, the artist Julius Caesar Ibbetson (DNB 1759-1817).
21. In the Oracle of 11.10.1798 a report of a dinner at the Shakespaeare Tavern for the anniversary of the first election for Westminster of Charles James Fox (DNB 1749-1806) concluded "the attention of the Company was particularly directed to a whole-length mezzotinto print of the Duke of Bedford, from Hoppner, by that eminent engraver, Raphael Smith." Francis Russell, (DNB 1765-1802) Duke of Bedford, was Fox's principal ally in the House of Lords. While he lived in Covent Garden, J R Smith had a vote in Westminster, and voted for Fox's ally Townsend in 1788, and for Fox in 1796 and 1802. Smith had exhibited his original paintings and drawings at the Royal Academy most years from 1779 to 1792, but then not again until 1800. But in 1796 his son John Rubens Smith began to exhibit there, and did so in every year until 1805, after which he left for America. The first three years John Rubens' address was given as 31 King Street, but by 1799 he was living at 50 Great Queen Street, in 1800 to 1801 at 3 Barton St, Westminster, in 1802 at 39 Great Titchfield St, in 1803 to 1804 at 81 Newman St, and in 1805 at 16, Upper Rathbone Place. On 12.9.1799 John R Smith engraver of Charles St, Westminster accepted a premium of £50 to take an apprentice, Elias E Breton for 5 years - I think this must have been John Rubens rather than his father. His sister Emma first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1799, and then again in 1803 to 1805, all from 31 King Street.
22. The next sister Eliza, aged 16, either eloped with, or was abducted by a 27-year-old naval Lieutenant, Montague Henry Kelly. They were obliged to marry, and did so by banns at St Saviour, Dartmouth on 24.10.1801, one of the witnesses was her stepmother Hannah Smith. According to the naval pay records, Kelly had been discharged from service on the Ville de Paris, flagship of the Channel fleet, on 12.9.1801, so events must have moved quite fast. Kelly's father Colonel Redmond Kelly had lived in the years before his death in 1798 at Great Deans Yard, Westminster, and his widow Bridget was still there in 1801. This was very near to John Rubens Smith's lodgings at Barton Street, and that was possibly how Kelly met Eliza. After their marriage Kelly took Eliza with him to Trinidad, which had in 1797 been taken from Spain by the British. He apparently treated her so badly there, attempting her life, that she put herself under the protection of the governor, Sir Thoms Picton (DNB 1758-1815), who sent her back to England (Dr Williams' Library, Henry Crabb Robinson diary 11.11.1819). Kelly had returned to England by 5.6.1803 when he wrote to the Admiralty asking for employment from 31 King Street, and then wrote again on 26.7.1803 from Laugharne, Carmarthenshire, a cheap seaside resort (Nat Arch ADM 6/170). On 7.9.1803 some of Kelly's uncollected half pay from earlier intervals between naval service was paid to Hannah Smith (Nat Arch ADM 25/141). Eliza was probably in Laugharne with Kelly, as their only child was born on 30.4.1804 and baptised 25.6.1804 at St Paul's Covent Garden as Eleanor Susan Kelly (J R Smith's second grandchild), and so was probably conceived around the time of the Laugharne letter. Eliza Kelly was noted in William Godwin's diary on 21.1.1803 and again on 20.1.1805 (so before and after becoming a mother) as dining with 3 Smiths at the house of William Nicholson (DNB 1753-1815). On 3.11.1804 Montague Kelly was sent a letter directing him to go to King's Lynn, and he served in ships patrolling the east coast until 22.5.1805 (Nat Arch ADM 11/14). According to the Fleet Prison records (Nat Arch PRIS 1/22) he was imprisoned for debt there from 30.1.1806 to 29.3.1806, apparently being bailed out by his cousin John Parker, Lord Boringdon (DNB 1772-1840), but then imprisoned again from 14.10.1806 when there was no bailout until he was discharged by the lapse of time on 26.7.1809.
23. From 1800 or earlier J R Smith began to concentrate more on his crayon portraits and less on his printselling business, and to visit the north of England more frequently, especially Nottingham, Hull, York, and eventually Doncaster where he died in 1812. He also experimented with washable mezzotints and printed oil paintings. An exhibition of these in Hull was advertised in the Hull Packet of 4.8.1801, and an exhibition of his portraits at Manchester was advertised in the Manchester Mercury of 13.10.1801. On 10.3.1802 there was a sale of his stock at Thomas King's in Covent Garden, and on 1.6.1802 the Monthly Magazine (no.13, p493) said he was giving up printselling, though he continued publishing a few prints in his own name and address up till 1811. There is an undated letter from J R Smith from Hull, which was clearly written after the battle of Trafalgar (21.10.1805) but before Smith moved from King Street to 33 Newman Street (25.3.1806). It was addressed to a Mr Parry who was to go to King Street to see Mrs Skepper and to take Mr and Mrs Carey with him. Mrs Skepper was the widow of Thomas Skepper of York who had died on 10.5.1805. She proved his will at York on 1.11.1805 and she and her 6-year-old daughter Anne Benson Skepper went to stay at J R Smith's house in London, where she first met her second husband, Basil Montagu (see above). Mr Carey was William Paulet Carey (see above). The letter enclosed a note, clearly intended for Smith's wife Hannah, whom he addressed as Puss, instructing her to receive the guests, and to make his daughter Emma concentrate on painting rather than music. Her works were receiving good notices (perhaps paid for by, or as favours to, her father), and she was an active member of the Associated Artists in Watercolours. But while Mrs Skepper was with her family, Emma made a drawing of her and her child which she later showed at the Royal Academy. A lady called Matilda Hill Clarke, who had received an inheritance of £15,000 that she didn't want to fall under the control of her husband Anthony Clarke, a stockbroker, saw the portrait and decided to give the money to the young widow, and so she called on Emma Smith saying she would like to meet the widow. Mrs Smith wrote to Mrs Skepper to come to London, but she didn't come, probably at that time already being engaged as housekeeper to her future husband. Meanwhile Mrs Clarke became attached to Emma Smith, gave her the £15,000, and at the same time hearing that there had been an acquaintance between her and a Mr Robert Smith, a barrister and great-nephew of Abel Smith (DNB 1717?-1788) banker of Nottingham, brought about a marriage between them (Dr Williams Library Henry Crabb Robinson Diary 6.1.1822). The marriage took place at St Marylebone on 10.8.1808, witnesses Matilda Hill Clarke, Anthony Clarke, and J R Smith. Ten days later, on 20.8.1808, one of Robert Smith's cousins died in a fall from a horse, leaving an estate at Preston Court in Gloucestershire to his cousin, on condition he changed his name to Pauncefote. According to Henry Crabb Robinson's Reminiscenses (Dr Williams Library 19.10.1857), J R Smith was "an unprincipled man - it is said that he used to say he would rather his three daurs should be the mistresses of noblemen than the wives of commoners - He was anxious to get rid of them and he succeeded - His youngest daughter was exquisitely beautiful". Selina Smith married at St Marylebone on 16.12.1809 Pynson Wilmot Longdill, an attorney.
24. The papers of the Associated Artists in Watercolours in the Victoria & Albert Museum library in London include a letter from Emma Smith dated Newman Street 6.3.1808 in which she apologised for not submitting more pictures for their exhibition "but circumstances of a most peculiar and interrupting nature have to my great annoyance entirely prevented me using my pencil according to my wishes". There is some reason to think she may already have been pregnant that March. A daughter of Robert and Emma Pauncefote was baptised Selina on 18.9.1810 at Welsh Newton, Herefordshire, a parish about 15 miles south west of Preston Court. A Selina Pauncefote aged 4, was buried at St Mary's Swansea, (another 60 miles further west) on 24.11.1814. And an E- M- Pauncefote aged 4, was buried at St Mary's Swansea on 12.11.1812. In R B Mowat's Life of Lord Pauncefote (1929), a biography of their son Julian Pauncefote (DNB 1828-1902) British ambassador to the USA, explaining why Robert & Emma Pauncefote spent much of their time in Europe and not at Preston Court, it is said that Emma was "rather dependent on the society of cultivated and cosmopolitan minds" and found life at Preston Court "somewhat dull". But their early move to Swansea when they were far from short of money suggests a desire to escape the limelight. Of course this suspicion of mine rests entirely on the age at burial of their first child being recorded as 4 rather than 3. Their next child Clara was born, according to the 1851 census, at the Vale of Iwn, Wales, their next but one, Bernard was baptised near Swansea in 1820, and their next, Matilda, was baptised at Swansea in 1821. Bernard was buried in Lambeth in London in 1823.
25. Also in the Victoria & Albert Museum library is an undated letter written from J R Smith in Doncaster to Ebenezer Rhodes (DNB 1762-1839) in Sheffield, in which he apologised to Rhodes that he could not send his carriage as his horse was lame, but encouraged him to come to dinner, saying "I had pressed Mr Taylor to come from Leeds to meet you and he has promised". This was probably Thomas Taylor (DNB 1777/8-1826) architect. Rhodes was planning on walking over with a friend (Harris) but Smith suggested they took the stagecoach half way. Smith also promised four Doncaster guests, all of whom can be identified. William Sheardown, printer and editor of the Doncaster Gazette, John Sinkinson, jeweller, watchmaker, and insurance agent, Valentine O'Dwyer, French teacher, and Richard Dagley (DNB 1761-1841), painter and engraver. (See C W Hatfield, Historical Notices of Doncaster, p93, 394, 469 and 493). Another friend of J R Smith's at Doncaster was Peter Inchbald (1777-1838) who kept a school near the town. According to J Holland's Memorials of Sir Francis Chantrey (1851), a biography of Francis Leggatt Chantrey (DNB 1761-1841) sculptor, "the same lodgings in Baxter Gate, Doncaster, were successively occupied by three artists of note, viz. Raphael Smith, Chantrey and Hofland" (Chantrey was in Doncaste in 1806; Thomas Christopher Hofland DNB 1777-1843), and (from the same source) on 4.5.1807 Chantrey was at Lord Milton's 21st birthday celebration at Wentworth House with Ebenezer Rhodes. (Lord Milton was Charles William Wentworth Fitzwilliam DNB 1786-1857). Nearly all the freeholders of Doncaster voted for Milton in the 1807 Yorkshire election. On 5.11.1807 Chantrey was at the celebration in London of the Friends of Liberty on the anniversary of the acquittal of Thomas Hardy (DNB 1752-1832) and others in the treason trials of 1794, where John Thelwall (DNB 1764-1834) gave a toast to Peter Inchbald of Doncaster "being a known friend of liberty" and Chantrey reported this to Inchbald in a letter. In 1809 Inchbald wrote to the Sheffield merchant Thomas Asline Ward "J R Smith the portrait painter who has lately been at Doncaster and frequently at my house", and on 4.4.1811 Chantrey wrote to Inchbald "Tell Mr Smith that I am appointed to execute the statue of His Majesty for the Council Chamber, Guildhall" (all these from Holland's work on Chantrey cited above). J R Smith's youngest son, Raphael Caesar Robert, became a pupil of Chantrey's in London shortly before J R Smith died. In Henry Crabb Robinson's diary for 18.12.1820 he noted that J R Smith's daughter, then Eliza Aders, had told him that Chantrey "owed everything to Mr S. It was Smith who discovered him at Sheffield where he was an apprentice to a carver and gilder. S persuaded his master to allow him time and opportunity to draw. Chantrey came to town in extreme poverty - S gave him money - to make him known S caused him to make a bust of himself - then introduced him to Horne Tooke and so made him known. Afterwards when Raffles S went to him as a pupil and the old gentleman died, the lad was sent into the kitchen to the servants - the boy was disgusted and directed his attention to medicine in which he is likely to be distinguished. Chantrey bears no recollection of Mr Smith's kindness". (John Horne Tooke DNB 1736-1812). R C R Smith was apprenticed on 7.6.1814 to Thomas Morrison, apothecary of Vale Grove Chelsea, the premium probably paid for by the proceeds of the sale in May 1814 by Dodd & Holland of prints left to him in his father's will.
26. J R Smith's last four portraits to be engraved, all by William Ward in 1810 and 1811, were of John Bigland (DNB 1750-1832) who also kept a school near Doncaster and had begun life in poverty, and of three radical politicians, Ronald Craufurd Ferguson (DNB 1773-1841), Francis Burdett (DNB 1770-1844) and John Horne Tooke. At the Northern Society exhibition in Leeds in 1811 Smith showed four portraits, two in crayons and two in oils (one of Peter Inchbald) and at the Royal Academy exhibition that same year he showed his portraits of Tooke and Burdett, and Chantrey showed his bust of Smith, often considered his masterpiece. That summer three of Smith's old associates died, David Foret was buried on 11.7.1811 at St Anne Soho, John Corregio Smith (surely a mistake for Thomas) was buried on 19.9.1811 at St Alkmund's, Derby (also noticed in Monthly Magazine for Nov 1811 p 401), and Richard Southern, a hairdresser of York (described by Eliza Aders to Henry Crabb Robinson on 21.7.1824 as a "very low man, a humble companion to her father") and father of Henry Southern (DNB 1799-1853) died of apoplexy on 24.9.1811. Smith made his will on 12.1.1812, witnessed by Richard Dagley, and William Haigh junior, a writing master of Doncaster who apparently became steward to the Irish estates of Earl Fitzwilliam (father to Lord Milton see above. Gentleman's Magazine May 1828). Smith left "to my very worthy and excellent friend John Benson of Thorne, Yorks, gent, the drawing presented to me by my most honoured friend Walter Fawkes Esq of a view in Switzerland by Turner and all the drawings in my possession by Girtin and De Wint". Thorne was near Doncaster and this John Benson must have been the one born in 1783 as his father John, an attorney, had died on 30.11.1811 two months before Smith made his will. John Benson married Harriet Coupland at Doncaster on 2.9.1812 and was noted in Langdale's Topographical Dictionary of Yorkshire (1822) for the excavation of a castle on his property at Thorne, then moved to Peoria County, Illinois, USA, where he died on 4.12.1834. (Walter Ramsden Hawkesworth Fawkes DNB 1769-1825, Joseph Mallord William Turner DNB 1773-1851, Thomas Girtin DNB 1775-1802, Peter De Wint DNB 1784-1839). William Ward got the engraving tools, "my esteemed friend and son in law Vincent Willson Longdill" got a bible and some prints, and the residue went to "my friend Hanah Croome late of Dursley, Glos but now living with me". However the Inland Revenue death duty records simply say "No residue". Smith died on 8.3.1812 according to his gravestone which still lies flat in Doncaster churchyard. When I visited there in 2012 I bought a half bottle of Burgundy and sat on his gravestone to drink it, pouring half on the stone which absorbed it without a stain.
27. Why or when Eliza Kelly went to Germany I haven't discovered, but according to the story she told Henry Crabb Robinson, her husband Montagu Kelly followed her there and she divorced him in Frankfurt, and then married Karl Meyer, a professor of music. I am fairly certain this was (Frederic-) Charles Meyer (DNB 1780-1840), who was naturalised as a British subject in 1812, and in fact lived until 1858. When Robinson first called on her as "Mrs Meyer, Aders' friend" (the German merchant Karl Aders) in London on 2.12.1817 "she was not dressed like a gentlewoman and therefore the first impression was not quite favorable". When he called the third time on 17.2.1818 she was using the name Mrs Smith "at Mr Meyer's request" so had presumably by then obtained her divorce from Meyer (on the grounds of incompatibility of temper). Meyer married, as a bachelor of St Marylebone, Sarah Pomeroy Smith at Richmond, Surrey on 31.12.1821. Until Charles Aders and Eliza went abroad in the summer of 1820 to get married, Robinson called on her, or on Aders to find her there, above sixty times, not counting when he called and found her not at home. More than half of those visits Aders was not present. Once Robinson accompanied her to a lecture of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (DNB 1772-1834) and once to the British Gallery. Once he brought Charles Lamb (DNB 1775-1834) with him, but mostly he came alone and they would discuss art, or he would read to her, especially from Torquato Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered translated by Edward Fairfax (DNB 1568? - 1632x5?). Robinson remained a bachelor all his life, and there was no sense of flirtation or of Aders' jealousy in these visits. On 5.4.1818 he first dined with them both, and the Pauncefotes and the Longdills were there. Robinson wrote that Longdill "has an almost Jewish face - is a confident talker, high in his politics and manners - and yet a friend of Shelley's, whose solicitor he was in the affair before the Chancellor" (high in politics meant Tory). Percy Bysshe Shelley (DNB 1792-1822) tried unsuccessfully to get custody of his children by his first wife, who had committed suicide, and in June 1817 Shelley had proposed the Longdills as guardians of the children (Nat Arch C 124/874/1).
28. Charles Aders and Eliza were married in Paris on 6.7.1820, and after their return to England Robinson continued to visit them frequently, introducing them to Coleridge, John Flaxman (DNB 1755-1826), George Beaumont (DNB 1753-1827) and William Wordsworth (DNB 1770-1850) among others. Aders' collection of Flemish and German pictures, his lavish dinners and musical evenings drew people there, but Eliza's "three husbands living" put off some who were careful of their respectability. On 22.7.1821 Robinson wrote "Mrs A was in affliction- Mrs Longdale is dead - a beautiful young woman of 29 leaving a family of 5 young children - she appeared to me a very charming woman - lively but not frivolous and a due mixture of naivete and earnestness". On 25.2.1822 Robinson visited the Aders and noted "An interesting conversation. Mrs A talked in a tone of religion which I did not expect but was pleased with. At the same time she intimated feelings and a tendency to superstition which I could only wonder at. She has repeatedly had dreams of events which subsequently occurred and sometimes with circumstances that rendered the coincidence both significant and wonderful. One she told merely frivolous, but another is remarkable and worth relating. She dreamt when in Germany that a great illumination took place, of what kind she was not aware - two luminous balls arose. In one she saw her sister Mrs Langdale with a child in her arms, an infant. On the night of the illumination on account of the coronation (years after the dream) she was called by Miss Watson into the back drawing room to see a ball or luminous body which had been let off at Hampstead. She went into the room and on a sudden it flashed on her mind with painful feelings that this was what I saw in my dream. That same evening her sister died - the sister had lately been brought to bed - the child lived". Selina Longdill's youngest child was born on 2.7.1821. The coronation of King George IV was on 19.7.1821 and Selina was buried at St Pancras on 30.7.1821. On 26.1.1823 Robinson wrote "poor Longdale is gone out of his mind - he is not yet put under restraint but the necessity of it is every day more urgent. This is produced by grief for the loss of his wife". (Just possibly he may also have been affected by the death of Shelley on 8.7.1822).
29. On 24.4.1823 Robinson noted that Eliza Aders' first husband Montagu Kelly "came in a drunken fit to the house and demanded his daughter". Kelly was taken to the magistrate's office where "he declared he would prosecute Mrs A for bigamy". This threat came to nothing, perhaps partly because Kelly's unmarried sister Eleanor King Kelly, who held the post of Housekeeper to the Custom House, had visited Mrs Aders on 21.4.1823. Robinson described her as "said to be a very amiable and worthy woman - she may be so - her appearance not altogether favourable - she is very bulky and wears expensive ornaments - her clothes rich but too gay - she is ever talking of great people and her ancestors - Sir Paulet the jailer of Queen Mary of Scotland - and is oracular too in uttering commonplace remarks but I should think she is good natured and kind hearted" and on 24.4.1823 he wrote "Mrs A is assured of the protection of Mrs K and the other respectable friends of her first husband". (See my entry for Eleanor King Kelly in Crabb Robinson Diary dataset). On 23.5.1823 Robinson went "to Aders - heard of the death of Longdel", (he was buried at St Pancras on 28.5.1823 aged 43), and on 27.6.1823 Mrs Aders told Robinson "that Ponsford tho' he received a handsome fortune with his wife refuses to do anything for the children of Longdil - A takes one boy P was applied to to allow Mrs Smith £20 per ann for the clothing of a girl and refuses. There are 5 orphans and L's brother has but £400 a year. Yet P passes for a worthy man. Old Mrs Clarke, the lady who gave Mrs P her fortune, gives up a debt of some hundreds of pounds to the children". This led to a coolness between the Aders and the Pauncefotes. Longdill's brother Benjamin Proude Longdill had been an East India Company surgeon and on 23.2.1824 Robinson heard from the Aders that he was on his death bed, but on 28.12.1824 at Lichfield Cathedral he married his cousin Elizabeth Charlotte Wilmot, probably so she could look after his nephews and nieces, and they moved to Exeter, where Benjamin Longdill was buried at St Sidwell's on 18.9.1829. On 6.8.1825 William Blake (DNB 1757-1827) and John Linnell (DNB 1792-1882) dined at the Aders' and Robinson met them there on 10.12.1825. On 3.6.1826 Coleridge sent Eliza Aders his poem The Two Founts, dedicated to her. On 3.9.1826 Robinson visited the Pauncefotes in Dublin where Robert Pauncefote was secretary to the Education committee and where their son Bernard was born on 14.1.1826, and on 23.12.1827 Robinson visited the Pauncefotes at Richmond when the Aders were present, and Pauncefote was said to be seeking a place as consul. On 13.9.1828 the Pauncefotes were at Munich when their youngest son Julian Pauncefote (DNB 1828-1902), later British ambassador to the US, was born. Charles Aders had bought a mansion, the "Redoute" at Godesberg near Bonn by 12.11.1823, and in the summer of 1828 Wordsworth and Coleridge visited the Aders there on their tour of Germany together.
30. Hannah Croome was buried at St Pancras on 31.1.1829 as Hannah Smith aged 74 of Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. She had perhaps been living with or near her son Raphael Caesar Robert Smith, who had a practice as surgeon and apothecary in Chelsea, at Church St in 1823, and at Lombard Terrace in 1827. In June 1829 Robinson left England for a two-year tour of Europe. Eliza Aders' daughter Eleanor Susan (known as Ellen) was married at St Pancras on 10.8.1829 to Hugh Ley (DNB 1790-1837). In Robinson's Reminiscences on 19.10.1857 shortly after Eliza Aders' death, he wrote of Ellen "about the worst person I ever knew - she was plain in person but had a certain humour and vivacity in society which enabled her to gain the affections of an amiable M.D. a Dr Ley whom she married and all but ruined - She spent his money pawned his plate & so tormented him by her misconduct every way, that she killed him by making him wretched". Coleridge on the other hand had likened Ellen's face, in a letter to Charles Aders dated 25.12.1822, to the 8th concerto of Corelli, but after her marriage Ellen fell out so deeply with her mother that her name was heavily inked out from Coleridge's letters, presumably by Eliza herself. When Robinson returned from Europe in October 1831 he heard of Ellen's quarrel with her mother, and on 12.10.1832 that Mrs Aders and some friends on the balcony of her house in Pall Mall narrowly escaped injury from a large stone "flung by the mob" protesting the rejection of the Reform Bill by the House of Lords. But Robinson soon realised there were other troubles on the way. The Aders were very keen to sell off their collection of pictures, and Robinson began to guess that Aders was ruined. On 6.12.1832 Robinson heard that R C R Smith had not been doing well in his profession and would go to live in the house at Godesberg which would be turned into a lodging house. R C R Smith was back in England by 23.3.1833 but while at Bonn he obtained a degree as Doctor of Medicine. Meanwhile Aders' business partnership with William Jameson had been dissolved and Aders was briefly arrested for debt and in a lock up house in Red Lion Square from 3.1.1833 to 9.1.1833, Robinson having been active in securing his release, and also giving the Aders a present of £200 to help them discharge small debts. Robinson also became a trustee of Aders' pictures which they were hoping to sell. Mrs Aders told Robinson on 14.11.1834 that her daughter Ellen Ley had written an anonymous letter to the father of Frederic Pfeffel, who was engaged to Mary Adelle, one of the Longdill children, informing him of insanity in the Longdill family, to try and prevent the marriage. Aders had resumed business but on 12.2.1835 he told Robinson he had suffered a great loss in Russia. On 25.5.1835 Mrs Aders told Robinson that Miss Kelly of the Custom House had died in debt, "even to the Lees!!!". On 19.7.1835 Aders had returned from Germany having sold Godesberg, and on 1.8.1835 Aders' pictures went on sale at Foster's of Pall Mall with disappointing results, most of the pictures remaining unsold. Pfeffel was married to Mary Adelle Longdill on 16.6.1836 at St Sidwell's, Exeter. On 23.9.1836 Aders' bankruptcy was announced in the London Gazette and Robinson saw it in the papers without having been warned of it. He confided to his diary concerning the Aders that "various circumstances have led me to doubt their worth. Her sincerity I doubt", and "I have often felt her conduct toward me liable to the imputation of gross flattery. I am unwilling to doubt his integrity yet he never satisfied me as to the cause of his failure before". On 19.10.1836 Robinson got a circular from Mrs Aders outlining her scheme of opening "a hotel garnie at Brussels" for which she was asking from her friends £100 each at 5% interest, She sent it to various people who hardly knew her, which alarmed Robinson. By 9.12.1836 she had raised £1000, but the move to Brussels got delayed. On 24.12.1836 Robinson made her a present of £50, but received no acknowledgement, so on 15.1.1837 he left his card at the Aders, "I would not go in tho' they were at home. This I hope will be understood and produce a letter -if not - there shall be an end of our acquaintance". On 18.1.1837 he got a letter from Aders excusing Mrs Aders from writing to him on the grounds of her ill health, with no mention of his present. On 24.1.1837 Dr Hugh Ley died, in debt. On 1.2.1837 Robinson got a letter from Mrs Aders asking if she had offended him and he replied that her silence had made him feel she was upset that his present was only £50 and not £100, and that he would call on condition they did not discuss the matter. On 16.3.1837 he noted "I believe she will not go to Brussels" (and he was right).
31. That summer Robinson made a tour of Germany with Wordsworth, and on his return he called on Aders on 11.8.1837 - "found him in his old counting house carrying on business with his nephew Longdill but in L's name - this does not look well" and on 12.8.1937 he visited the Aders in their new house in Chelsea and wrote "It is a relief to me that the distance will be my excuse for not visiting them often - I have lost my relish for Mrs A's society - I suspect her sincerity and such a suspicion renders all expressions of friendship or respect unpleasant - this makes me uneasy - I am apprehensive lest I do her wrong". On 30.8.1837 Robinson heard fom Aders that "Mrs A is going on well with her portrait taking". His next call on the Aders was on 12.11.1837 when he learnt that Ellen Ley "has got pupils and means to keep a school!!!" He called again on 1.2.1838 and then on 23.3.1838 when he learnt that Mrs Ley was in the White Cross Prison for debt - "An utterly ruined and irretrievable person". But on 9.5.1838 Robinson heard that Mrs Ley had found a friend in John Halcomb (DNB 1792-1852) and on 8.7.1838 that she was back in her house and still intending to open a school. On 2.4.1838 Robinson called at the Aders and was glad to see they had three lodgers, one was "Mrs Bent a widow gentlewoman" (this was the mother of my great-aunt's great-uncle mentioned at the start of this article).
On 7.9.1838 the German artist Wilhelm Hensel drew a portrait of Eliza Aders while he was visiting London.
32. On 9.2.1839 Robinson heard that Mr Pauncefote had sustained a ruinous loss by the failure of the Belgian Bank, and on 26.4.1839 Robinson was released from his trusteeship of Aders' pictures by their final sale, which fetched very little, the only two "real bidders" being the architect Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (DNB 1812-1852) and the surgeon Joseph Henry Green (DNB 1791-1863). At the Royal Academy that year Eliza Aders exhibited two pictures, "Luxuriating in Pleasures of Memory" and "Pensez A Moi". When Robinson called on Aders on 23.11.1839 Eliza had gone to Bruges to copy paintings but had become alarmingly ill. On 7.1.1840 Robinson learnt that Mrs Ley had committed theft and the prosecutrix required £5 to be bought off, which Robinson arranged, providing half of it himself. He visited the Aders on 29.1.1840 when Eliza was returned and she told him her sister had sent her £50 because of her great loss due to being ill at Bruges. On 16.4.1840 Robinson had the Aders to dinner, but confessed it was "an invitation from a sense of duty not for pleasure" and added that "The being connected with the unfortunate is always a trial". On 17.5.1841 Robinson called on Mrs Aders and heard that her daughter Ellen Ley was "now under the protection of Mrs Fry!" (presumably Elizabeth Fry DNB 1780-1845), and on his next call on 17.7.1841 he heard that Ellen had lost a situation as governess in Lady Aylesbury's family, but had introduced her mother to a good wealthy woman at Stepney, Mrs Hutchinson "who will probably patronise Mrs A". (See my entries for Aylesbury and Hutchinson in Crabb Robinson Diary dataset). In the 1841 census at Shawfield Cottage, Chelsea, Eliza Aders' household consisted of her niece and nephew Emily and Pynson Longdill, three German lodgers, a Susan Ellis and her child, and three servants. On 22.8.1841 the Era reviewed Mrs Aders' picture of "England, Scotland and Ireland as the three Graces" and on 7.10.1841 she conducted a lottery of her pictures for which Robinson and other friends had each bought £5 tickets. On 12.10.1841 Robinson heard that Ellen Ley had been seen begging by her cousin Longdill but said her name was not Ley and ran off refusing a half-crown offered her. On 14.2.1842 Robinson learnt that Aders had gone to Messina for his health. Robinson now began to try to raise an annuity for Mrs Aders and also arranged for his brother, and for Wordsworth, to sit for her, though the likenesses were not thought good. Eliza wanted to join her husband in Italy and go first to Florence, which alarmed her sister Emma Pauncefote who was in Florence that summer, marrying off her daughter Clara to Captain William Popham RN, son of Home Riggs Popham (DNB 1762-1820) and her daughter Matlida to Baron Carl Lachmann-Falkerau from Silesia, and she feared the scandal of her sister's reputation. It was eventually agreed that the Pauncefotes would give £30, Robinson would give £20, a Mr Otto Trumpler would give £5, and Mrs Tennant, a friend of the Pauncefotes from Swansea, would give £15, making a £70 annuity for Eliza, who left for Paris in September 1842 and met her husband at Leghorn in January 1843. On 22.2.1843 Emma's husband Robert Pauncefote died at Boulogne, and soon after that Emma lifted her prohibition on the Aders going to Florence. Aders himself had an annuity of £84 from his relations, though it was apparently not often paid. On 20.11.1843 Robinson heard that Ellen Ley had been "on the treadmill". On 10.7.1846 Robinson got a letter from Mrs Aders announcing the death of her husband. On 14.11.1847 Emma Pauncefote's oldest son Robert died aged only 28.
33. Eliza Aders' first husband Montague Henry Kelly having died on 3.3.1838, she now returned to England and claimed £50 pension from 1.7.1848 as a widow of a naval officer, Captain Popham vouching for her and further enquiries were not made. Emma Pauncefote died on 28.6.1853 and Eliza Aders on 15.3.1857, attended in her last days by her niece Clara Popham. Robinson had no idea on 19.10.1857 whether Ellen Ley was alive or dead, and wrote "She had not heard of her mother's illness who was thus spared the affliction of a sight of her". She apparently got £30 a year pension as the widow of a physician but all I know of her was that she was a lodger at 21 Bolsover St in the 1861 census, and died as stated above on 2.3.1867 at 43 Chesterfield St, Brighton. R C R Smith was listed in Pigot's 1835 directory as a surgeon at 4 Cook's Ground, Chelsea and in 1838 to 1840 at 11 Adams Place, Chelsea. He had married at St Mark Kennington on 26.11.1837 Ann Elizabeth Powell widow of 4 Church St Chelsea, daughter of Thomas Goodess, builder. He was described as a bachelor, surgeon of 26 Chester Place Kennington., and one of the witnesses was his nephew P W Longdill. But by the 1841 census Raphael Smith surgeon age 40 was living in lodgings at St Peter Port, Guernsey. By the 1851 census he was at Croome Cottage, St Peter Port with a wife Maria Harriet Burchall aged 28 born in England and 5 children all born at St Peter Port, the eldest being Ann Elizabeth aged 6, presumably named after his first wife. In 1854 he became a Licentiate of Physicians, Surgeons and Accoucheurs Guernsey, and in 1858 his paper on calomel in Asiatic cholera appeared in the Journal of Practical Medicine and Surgery, Paris. By the 1861 census they had three more children and by 1871 one more. His daughter Susan Martha Smith aged 19 was a teacher of music and drawing in 1871 and it was from her that Julia Frankau got the list of J R Smith's children published in her book of 1902. R C R Smith died on 13.6.1879 at Guernsey. As for J R Smith's children by his first wife, Angelica Rosalba had five children by William Peartree mentioned above, one born in 1810 was named Francis Burdett after the radical politician Francis Burdett (DNB 1770-1844). All five were born before she was free to marry Peartree in 1822, and all of them married between 1830 and 1835, and she herself was buried on 12.8.1832 at St Luke Old Street. She doesn't seem to have been mentioned in Robinson's diary so perhaps she was not in touch with her socially grander sisters Emma and Eliza. Nor does John Rubens Smith seem to have been mentioned there, though he had reasonable success as an artist and teacher in the US, marrying his pupil Elizabeth Pepperal Sanger of Boston in 1809, having three sons and three daughters, and dying on 21.8.1849 at New York.
I now (24.9.2015) consider this article finished though I will probably add details to it later
Below is a very poor scan of the six pastels mentioned at the start of this article. The oval framing was done by a relative of mine about 20 years ago
