The Smith Family

The Smith family's involvement in banking was begun by Thomas Smith (1631 - 1699) who established a banking house in Nottingham.¹ Some of the descendants of Thomas Smith owned Jamaican plantations and some benefited financially from compensation for the ownership of enslaved people in 1836.

The first member of the family with an established connection to enslavement was Abel Smith (1717 - 1788). Amongst his children were Robert Smith (1752 - 1838) and John Smith (1767 - 1842). Robert's son, Robert John Smith [Carrington] (matric. 1811), attended Christ's. So too did John Smith's son, John Abel Smith (matric. 1819) and his grandson, Robert Dudley Smith (matric, 1847).

Connection to enslavement

The Grandson of Thomas Smith, Abel Smith (1717–1788), expanded the family's banking business, establishing branches in Hull, Lincoln and London.² ³ His stated intention was to create 'a house which should be equal in credit to the best houses in England', which became known as 'Smith, Payne & Smith'.⁴

At his death in 1788, Abel left, amongst other property, an estate in Jamaica, in addition to £59,573 (worth more than £10 million in 2022) in cash bequests.⁵ The Legacies of British slavery project suggests that by Abel's death, the banking firm 'was already a creditor in the slave-economy'.⁶ In 1776, Smith, Payne & Smith acquired the mortgage over the Burton's New Works plantation on Jamaica, which had 242 enslaved people working on it, and held the mortgage for approximately 30 years.⁷

Robert Smith (1752 - 1838) was the third eldest of Abel Smith's sons, and became an 'active member of the London banking house', joining the firm as a partner.⁵ ⁸ He was elected as an M.P. for Nottingham in 1780, and was elevated to the peerage as the 1st Baron Carrington in 1796. One history of the banking house, published in 1903, suggests that this was partly due to the fact that Robert was William Pitt the Younger's 'chief financial advisor and agent in the money market' at the time.⁸ Robert was head of the entire firm between his father's death in 1788 and his own retirement in the late 1790s.⁵ ⁸

Robert also owned two plantations in Jamaica: records indicate that he owned the Cow Park estate and the Farm Pen estate, in addition to the 259 enslaved people who were registered on them in 1817.⁹ ¹⁰ In 1836, Robert - alongside one of his nephews, Samuel George Smith, who had become a partner in the family bank - claimed compensation for the enslaved people they owned on the Farm Pen plantation (though the claim may also have covered those on his Cow Park estate).¹¹ ¹² They were awarded a total of £4908 8s 5d for their ownership of 268 enslaved people.¹²

John Smith (1767 - 1842) was one of Abel Smith's younger sons: he became a partner in the family firm, and served as an M.P. for various constituencies between 1802 and 1834.¹³ He was one of the primary beneficiaries when various members of the Smith family claimed more than a third of the compensation awarded for 106 enslaved people on the Holland Estate in Jamaica.¹⁴ John and two of his nephews were awarded £778 0s 7d of the compensation for their position as mortgagees.¹⁴ ¹⁵ John was also a trustee named in the will of Thomas Hibbert (d. 1807).¹⁶ As a result, he became a joint trustee of at least two estates, and the 817 enslaved people registered on them in 1817.¹⁷

Additionally, John was probably the same 'John Smith' who was a partner in the firm Edward and Rene Payne & Co. In 1824, the firm was owed £2968 12s 11d by John Gloster Garraway, a man who had owned property and enslaved people in Grenada before most of his property was sold for debt by 1824-25.¹⁵ ¹⁸ At his death in 1842, John divided his real estate between his son John Abel Smith (matric. 1819) and Martin Tucker Smith.¹⁵

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The only son of Robert Smith was Robert John Smith [Carrington] (matric. 1811). He later succeeded his father as 2nd Baron Carrington in 1838, and adopted the surname 'Carrington' in place of 'Smith' by royal licence in 1839.¹⁹  Although he matriculated prior to his father's compensation, he must have benefitted from his grandfather (Abel Smith) having owned an estate in Jamaica, in addition to his father (Robert Smith) having owned multiple plantations and numerous enslaved people on the island. The proceeds of enslavement thereby probably financed Robert's education at Christ's, at least in part.

John Abel Smith (matric. 1819) likewise probably benefitted from enslavement in how his education was financed. His grandfather (Abel Smith) had owned an estate in Jamaica, and his father (John Smith) had received compensation in 1836, as well as operating as the trustee of two other estates, in addition to the 817 enslaved people working on them. The proceeds of enslavement are impossible to disentangle precisely from the rest of the fortune gained by generations of the Smith family: John Smith's role as a partner on a firm owed nearly £3,000 by a slave owner in Grenada exemplifies how interconnected metropolitan finance and colonial enslavement could be.

Nonetheless, John Abel Smith (matric. 1819) probably benefitted from the proceeds of enslavement in how his education was funded, and in the inheritance he later received at his father's death. Indeed, the same applies to his own son, Dudley Robert Smith (matric. 1847). The family's wealth, by which his education must have been financed, was intertwined with enslavement in the British West Indies, even after his relatives' direct connections to enslavement had lapsed.

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