Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Smith, Humphrey
SMITH, HUMPHREY (d. 1663), quaker, was born, probably at Little Cowarne, Herefordshire, where his father was a prosperous farmer. He was brought up strictly in the church of England, and well educated, although he can hardly be the Humphrey Smith, son of John, of the parish of Edvin Ralphe (seven miles from Cowarne), who matriculated at Jesus College, Oxford, on 8 Sept. 1634, aged seventeen, and graduated B.A. on 3 July 1636 (Foster, Alumni Oxon. early ser. p. 1372).
He soon occupied a farm worth 30l. a year, and married. He early began preaching, perhaps as an independent; George Fox says ‘he had been a priest.’ His addresses were ‘admired’ by hundreds, and he preached daily in the pulpits. After a time ‘his mouth was stopped’ owing to doubts of his own sincerity, and he held his last meeting at Stoke Bliss, a village near Cowarne.
About 1654 he fell in with the quakers, and before long gave up his occupation to be ready for the ‘call’ to go hither and thither preaching. On 14 Aug. 1655 he was arrested at a meeting in Bengeworth, close by Evesham, and confined for some weeks in a noisome cellar, the only aperture in which was four inches high. He seems to have specially annoyed the magistrates before whom he was brought for examination by the figurative statements that he ‘came from Egypt’ and ‘walked not the earth.’ George Fox visited him in prison (Journal, 1891, i. 253).
On 9 Feb. 1658 Smith was charged with misdemeanour for being at a meeting at Andover, where he was the first quaker to preach. He was committed by Judge Windham to Winchester gaol until he would give security for his good behaviour (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1658–9, p. 158). He remained there until after March 1659, composing several of his books in prison. During 1660 he was at liberty. In May he wrote down a remarkable ‘Vision’ (published London, 1660, 4to), which he had of the great fire of 1666, and of the famine and fear which followed the appearance of the Dutch fleet in the Medway (Notes and Queries, 1st ser. vii. 80, 182; Collectitiæ, 1824, pp. 174–6).
On 14 Oct. 1661, while proceeding west to visit his only son Humphrey (afterwards of Saffron Walden, Essex), he was arrested at a meeting at Alton, Hampshire, and again lodged in Winchester gaol. Here he remained ‘from sessions to sizes, and from sizes to sessions,’ until in April 1663 he was attacked with gaol fever, and died in prison on 4 May 1663. A last letter to his son, dated 23 April, was printed as a broadside in 1663, and is in his works, published by the latter, London 1683, 4to. A fellow prisoner, Nicholas Complin, contributed a short narrative of his imprisonment, written 21 June 1663. To some pages of verse Smith appended an apology for writing in ‘meeter, it being apt to beget lightness in the reader’ [cf. art. Perrot, John].
The following were separately published: 1. ‘Something in Reply to Edmund Skipp's “The World's Wonder, or the Quaker's Blazing Star,” &c.’ London, 1655, 4to. Skipp was a preacher at Bodenham, Herefordshire. 2. ‘The Sufferings … of the Saints at Evesham’ [1656], 4to. 3. ‘An Alarum sounding forth,’ 1658, 4to. 4. ‘Divine Love spreading forth over all Nations,’ London, n.d., 4to. 5. ‘The True and Everlasting Rule,’ 1658, 4to. 6. ‘Hidden Things made manifest by the Light,’ 1658, 4to, reprinted 1664. 7. ‘To all Parents of Children,’ 1660 8vo; 2nd edit., 1667. 8. ‘For the Honour of the King,’ 1661, 4to. 9. ‘Sound Things asserted,’ 1662, 4to. 10. ‘Forty-four Queries propounded to all the Clergymen of the Liturgy, by One whom they trained up,’ 1662, 4to.
[Complin's Faithfulnesse of the Upright, 1663; Smith's Collected Writings, 1683; Sewel's Hist. of the Rise, &c., i. 175, ii. 73; Besse's Sufferings, i. 150, 166, 167, 206, 229, 233, 234, ii. 50–8; Tuke's Biogr. Notices, ii. 181; Collectitiæ or Pieces adapted to the Society of Friends, 48, 54; Smith's Cat. of Friends' Books, ii. 586–94.]