Abel Smith (1717–1788)


Abel Smith was a British Member of Parliament and one of the leading bankers of his time.

Biography

Early life

Abel Smith was baptised on 14 March 1717 at Nottingham, a son of Abel Smith and Jane Beaumont. He was a grandson of Thomas Smith, the founder of the Nottingham Smith's Bank and the outstanding figure in its history.

Career

He was apprenticed at the age of fifteen to the Hull merchant adventurer William Wilberforce, becoming a partner in Wilberforce and Smith and eventually running it, while at the same time continuing an involvement with the Nottingham Bank. On the death of his father, Abel senior, he succeeded to the Nottingham partnership with his brother George before assuming sole control the following year. In 1758, he founded a bank in London, Smith & Payne, and two other provincial banks—at Lincoln in 1775 and Hull in 1784, both separately constituted.
He entered Parliament as member for Aldborough in 1774, and later also represented St Ives and St Germans. These were all pocket boroughs, and Smith may well have had to pay considerable sums to the proprietors to secure his seats; later a proportion of the family wealth was devoted to buying the Smiths a couple of pocket boroughs of their own, and by the early 19th century his son, Lord Carrington, could nominate the MPs at both Midhurst and Wendover.
He seems to have become an MP as much with the business advantages in mind as with any high political ambitions. Brooke quotes him as writing, shortly before he was first elected in 1774, "I see many solid advantages accruing to my family from a seat in Parliament, the best of which, the article of franking , will save a very considerable expense in so extensive a business as that I am engaged in." Although he supported the government, his first two speeches in the House of Commons were both attacks on the government for the way in which they had allotted subscriptions for government loans, in each case referring to occasions when his own firm had been excluded.

Personal life

In 1745 he married Mary Bird, the daughter of Thomas Bird and Elizabeth Martyn, of Coventry. Thomas Bird was the son of William Bird and Elizabeth Martyn was the daughter of Francis Martyn and Elizabeth Doughty.
Mary's younger sister, Elizabeth Bird, was the mother of William Wilberforce.
They had nine children, five of his sons following their father into Parliament:
He died on 12 July 1788 at Wilford House, the family home in Nottinghamshire, aged seventy-one, and was buried in St. Peter's Church, Nottingham.