Smith, WILLIAM HENRY

Smith, WILLIAM HENRY, newsagent, bookseller, and Cabinet Minister, was born in London, June 24, 1825. He was educated at the grammar-school, Tavistock, and while a youth entered his father's business, and rose step by step to be head of the firm. This, the largest wholesale newspaper business of the kind in Britain, was founded by his father (born 1792), who saw that the London newspapers, sent off by the evening coaches only, were not delivered in Manchester and Liverpool until forty-eight hours after publication. He conceived the idea of forwarding the papers by express parcel, with private coaches leaving London in the morning, so that the night coaches were overtaken, and the delivery of news secured twenty-four hours in advance. As the business expanded, to this was added the right of selling books and newspapers at railway stations (Birmingham Railway, 1849). Mr W. H. Smith was as strong in organising faculty as his father had been, and business was extended. He represented Westminster, 1868-85; was returned for the Strand in 1885 and again in 1886. He held the posts of Financial Secretary of the Treasury (1874-77), first Lord of the Admiralty (1877-80), Secretary of State for War (1885); in Lord Salisbury's ministry he was first Lord of the Treasury and leader of the House of Commons till his death, October 6, 1891. His widow was raised to the peerage as Viscountess Hambleden. He was distinguished for conscientious discharge of duty, and in 1889 received a handsome memorial from members of the House of Commons, and was entertained to a banquet. He was an honorary D.C.L. of Oxford. He left a fortune of £1,776,000 in personality, besides several estates. See his Life by Sir Herbert Maxwell (2 vols. 1893).