Smart, Esther

Submitted by edpope on

Smart calls with Esther 12.5.1802

Martin Smart son of Thomas & Esther was bapt 10.7.1751 at St Marylebone. Smart was a fairly common name but Martin & Esther were not the commonest of first names so the coincidence level is quite high, though not a certainty. Fifty might seem a good age for a militia sergeant but he was clearly an unusual person. First names often repeated in families so the baptism above might have been in another generation, and Esther might have been his mother, sister or daughter. Esther Smart widow of Greek St formerly of Tothill St was buried 5.6.1804 Soho her will was proved London Consistory 1807 under £100 by her son-in-law Robert Edwaqrd Durnford and mentioned her granddaughter Martha (Smart?) Durnford and her grandson Joseph James Smart. Robert Edward Durnford married Martha Elizabeth Smart 29.3.1796 Soho, their son John Wm D was bapt St Sepulchre 3.11.1804 and Joseph James Smart married Susanna Woodbridge 18.8.1810 Soho. Martin Smart (with a signature fairly like that on Smart's letters to Godwinn married as a widower Ann Rainbird spinster 28.7.1808 St Dunstan i t West wits Giles Hanwell, Hannah Holmes. Richard Phillips published Gil Blas translated by Martin Smart with a hundred engravings 1807 and Smart's The Female Class Book 1813 was published by Lackington Allen and others