Sunday, October 4, 2009

Frederick Thomas Smith





























Smythe had a brother. A Professor of Music, temperance lecturer and Hotel Proprietor of the West Central Hotel, London. It was in family hands at least until World War 2, and it survived the blitz. He had married in 1863 to neighbour and Temperance/Church singer Emma Barnett.

Frederic Thomas Smith was born January 4th 1841 in Lambeth and died in 1919 in Hendon, leaving the Hotel to his sons, of whom Frank Barnett Smith died in 1926. He had eight children from whom there must be a descendant or two. Surely. The Temperance papers mentioned him in 1919 I am sure as he was well known and high up on the ladder of the don't tipple legion. What papers these are and where they are to be found is a mystery to me although Lambeth Palace (or is it the Kensington one?) has the records of some of the Temperance movements like the Band of Hope (of which Frederic was a secretary), although still extant and doing marvelous work, know nothing of their ancient history (which is understandable given they deal with suicides, drugs and such on a daily basis) nor could point me to any eccentric single-subject researcher who might have fondly pestered them and bored them to death at functions.

I need a paid professional walking, talking, microchipped, half-mad, English researcher with a packed lunch and eccentric manner to ferret about in the papyrus of London. So, I must await the pink sparrows liberation from their birdcage until I can afford such engagements. Should the pink sparrows die in their cage I am done for...perhaps.

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