In 1889 Smythies became convinced that it was impossible for one man to supervise the work of his vast diocese, and in 1890 he came to England to help to collect the endowment needed for its subdivision. By incessant travelling, speaking, and preaching, the sum of 11,000l. was raised in six months, the necessary formalities were completed, and the Rev. Wilfrid B. Hornby was consecrated as first bishop of Nyasa, a title afterwards changed to Likoma. On the division of the diocese Smythies's title was altered to bishop of Zanzibar and missionary-bishop of East Africa. During his visit to England he was in June 1890 made honorary D.D. of Oxford University.
After his return to Zanzibar, Smythies's health broke down; but, in spite of physical weakness, he set out in October 1893 upon a long tour through the villages of the far interior, accompanied only by a native deacon and a few native Christians. He cast himself upon the hospitality of the natives, living in their huts and sharing their food. The result, from a spiritual point of view, was most gratifying, but it was physically disastrous to the bishop: he was prostrated by a severe attack of malarial fever. Although he found his way back to Zanzibar and struggled on with his work for a while, he failed to recover, and, after a brief sojourn in the mission hospital, was sent to England as the one hope of saving his life. On 5 May 1894 he was carried on board the French steamer Peiho, but on the second day at sea he died, and was buried at sundown at a point in mid-ocean halfway between Zanzibar and Aden.
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SNAGGE, THOMAS (1536–1592), speaker of the House of Commons, was born in 1536 at Letchworth, Hertfordshire, where his father, Thomas Snagge, was lord of the manor. A brother Robert was a bencher of the Middle Temple, and sat as member for Lostwithiel in the parliament of 1571. In 1552 Thomas entered as a student at Gray's Inn, and was called to the bar by that society in 1554. In 1563 he was appointed ‘reader,’ and in 1574 became ‘double reader.’ He sat as member for the county of Bedford in the parliament of 1571, and appears to have become an effective debater in the House of Commons. On 13 Sept. 1577 the queen, in a private letter to Sir Henry Sidney [q. v.], nominated Snagge to the office of attorney-general for Ireland, ‘being sufficiently persuaded of his learning and judgment in the law wherein he had been in long practice as a counsellor’ (Morrin, Patent and Close Rolls of Ireland, ii. 11). Snagge's patent of appointment was dated 2 Dec. 1577. ‘The Dutye that he oweth to her Majestie and his Countrye,’ wrote Walsingham to Sidney, ‘doth make him leaue all other Respects and willinglie to dedicat himself to that Seruice, for the which I thinke him a Man so well chosen both for Judgement and bould Spirit … as hardlie all the Howses of Court could yeld his like’ (Collins, Letters and Memorials of State, i. 228). Snagge did not belie Walsingham's expectations. Three months after his arrival in Dublin, Sidney wrote of him to Walsingham: ‘I fynde him a Man well learned, sufficient, stoute, and well-spoken, an Instrument of good Service for her Majestie, and soche a one as is carefull to redresse by Wisdome and good Discreation soch Errors as he fyndeth in her Majesties Courts here. So that by his presence I find my selfe well assisted and humblye thank yr Lordships for the sendinge him to me, and more of his Sorte are needed’ (ib. p. 231). Snagge held the office of attorney-general for Ireland for three years, returning to England in 1580, when he was appointed serjeant-at-law. He was treasurer of Gray's Inn for that year, and resumed his large practice at the bar. To the parliament of November 1588 Snagge was returned for Bedford town, and was chosen speaker of the House of Commons (12 Nov. 1588). Parliament was prorogued on 4 Feb. 1588–9, but Snagge continued to hold the office until the dissolution on 28 March 1589–90. In 1590 he was advanced to the dignity of queen's serjeant. He died in 1592, in the fifty-seventh year of his age. He was buried at Marston-Morteyne, where is a handsome canopied monument to his memory, with recumbent effigies in marble of himself and his wife. By his marriage with a coheiress of Thomas Dikons, Snagge acquired the large estates of the Reynes family in Bedfordshire. His eldest son, Sir Thomas Snagge of Marston-Morteyne, was elected member for Bedford county in November 1588, was one of the first knights made by James I on his accession in 1603, and was high sheriff of Bedfordshire in 1607.
