be major-general on 20 Jan. 1854. In 1855 he was transferred from Portsmouth to the command of the royal engineers at Aldershot. He was appointed public examiner and inspector of the Military College of the East India Company at Addiscombe in 1856. In March 1857 he was again returned to parliament as member for Chatham. He resigned his command at Aldershot, finding his time fully occupied with parliamentary and kindred duties. He was a member of the royal commission on harbours of refuge in 1858, and of the commission on promotion and retirement in the army. He was again returned as member for Chatham at the election of April 1859, and continued to sit for that borough until 1868. He was promoted to be lieutenant-general on 25 Oct. 1859, colonel-commandant of royal engineers on 6 July 1860, and general on 3 Aug. 1863.
Smith died on 20 Nov. 1874 at his residence, 62 Pembridge Villas, Notting Hill Gate, London, and was buried in Kensal Green cemetery. He was a fellow of the Royal Society, an associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and a member of many learned bodies. A good engraved portrait appears in Vibart's ‘Addiscombe’ (p. 297).
Smith married at Buckland, near Dover, on 31 Jan. 1813, Harriet, daughter of Thomas Thorn, esq. of Buckland House. There was no issue. Smith was the author of ‘The Military Course of Engineering at Arras,’ 8vo, Chatham, 1850, and he translated, with notes, Marshal Marmont's ‘Present State of the Turkish Empire,’ 8vo, London, 1839; 2nd ed. 1854.
[Despatches; London Gazette; Royal Engineers' Records; War Office Records; Royal Engineers' Journal, 1874, obituary notice; Minutes of Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, vol. xxxix., obituary notice; Porter's History of the Corps of Royal Engineers; Conolly's History of the Royal Sappers and Miners; Vibart's Addiscombe, its Heroes and Men of Note; Parliamentary Blue-books.]
SMITH, JOHN ORRIN (1799–1843), wood engraver, was born at Colchester in 1799. About 1818 he came up to London, and was for a short time in training as an architect. On coming of age in 1821 he inherited some money, with a portion of which he bought a part-proprietorship in a weekly newspaper, ‘The Sunday Monitor,’ on which Douglas Jerrold [q. v.] worked as a compositor. The rest he invested in the purchase of houses, the title of which proved bad, and by the time he was twenty-four he found himself penniless.
William Harvey [q. v.], the draughtsman on wood, came to his assistance, and instructed him in the art of wood-engraving. Smith showed great aptitude and soon found employment, the only complaint being that some of the printers of that date declared that his ‘cuts’ were too fine to print. After much hack-work, he was employed by Léon Curmer of Paris to engrave a number of the blocks for his beautiful edition of ‘Paul et Virginie’ (1835). Wood-engraving had not revived at this time in France as it had under Bewick and his successors in England. In 1837 he prepared engravings for Seeley and Burnside's ‘Solace of Song,’ which marked a new departure in wood-engraving. In it high finish, tone, and delicacy of graver work contrast with the crisp, somewhat hard, though admirable work of Clennell, Nesbit, and Thompson. Where, however, there was gain in refinement, there was doubtless a loss in virility.
There followed, besides much other work, in 1839, Herder's ‘Cid,’ published at Stuttgart, and an English edition of ‘Paul et Virginie;’ in 1840 Dr. Wordsworth's ‘Greece;’ in 1840–1 ‘Heads of the People,’ by (Joseph) Kenny Meadows [q. v.]; in 1839–43 Shakespeare's ‘Works,’ with nearly 1,000 designs by Kenny Meadows. Of the last two works Smith was part proprietor with Henry Vizetelly and the artist. In 1842 he took into partnership the eminent wood-engraver Mr. W. J. Linton, with whom, under the style of ‘Smith & Linton,’ much good work was produced for the ‘Illustrated London News.’ Among the books engraved by them was ‘Whist, its History and Practice,’ illustrated by Meadows (1843).
Smith died from a stroke of apoplexy on 15 Oct. 1843, at 11 Mabledon Place, Burton Crescent, London. In 1821 he married Jane Elizabeth, daughter of Joseph Barney [q. v.] His widow survived him with four children. The son, Mr. Harvey Edward Orrinsmith (the name is now so spelt), at one time practised wood-engraving, but subsequently became a director of the firm of James Burn & Co., bookbinders.
A portrait of Orrin Smith was engraved for Curmer's ‘Paul et Virginie.’
[Vizetelly's Glances Back; Bryan's Dict. of Painters and Engravers; information from Mr. Harvey E. Orrinsmith.]
SMITH, JOHN PRINCE (1774?–1822), law reporter, only son of Edward Smith of Walthamstow, Essex, born about 1774, was admitted on 15 Nov. 1794 a student at Gray's Inn, where he was called to the bar on 6 May 1801. He practised on the home
