Alfred Charles Smith — In Memoriam. 199 



more than forty years he gave himself indefatigably to the task of 

 maintaining the work of the Society — and more especially the 

 Magazine — at the high level at which it was started. The work it 

 is true was for him a labour of love, but the office that he filled 

 entailed a good deal more solid work than is sometimes perhaps 

 supposed. 



Educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, Mr. Smith took 

 his B.A. degree in 1846, and M.A. in 1848. 1 He married in 1851 

 Frances, daughter of the Rev. T. T. Upwood, of Lovells House, 

 Terrington. In 1846 he was ordained deacon, and in 1847 priest, 

 by the Bishop of Bath and "Wells, beginning clerical work as curate 

 of Chewton Mendip, Somerset, in 1846. Here he remained till 

 1849, after which he held successively the curacies of Welford, 

 Berks, 1849 — 1850, and Milton, in the same county, 1851 — 1852. 

 In the latter year he became Rector of Yatesbury, of which he was 

 himself the patron, and from that time no one has been more closely 

 connected with the County of Wilts than he. His father, the 

 Rev. Alfred Smith, was for a time curate of Bishops Cannings, 

 and afterwards perpetual curate of Southbroom, and in 1825 he 

 purchased from Mr. John Eldridge the estate of Old Park, 

 Devizes, the house itself as it now stands having been built by 

 William Eldridge, the father of John, about the commencement of 

 the present century. Here, during the latter part of his life, Mr. 

 Smith the elder lived, and on his death, at the age of 79, on October 

 29th, 1877, was buried in Southbroom Churchyard, in the vault 

 which was opened to receive his son twenty-one years later. Here 

 his widow lived for many years after his death, and from the year 

 1885 the Rev. A. C. Smith retired to this comfortable, roomy, old- 

 fashioned house during the winter, to escape the more inclement 

 climate of Yatesbury, until he finally resigned that living in 1889 

 and came to live altogether at Old Park. From this time until his 

 death on December 7th, 1898, at the age of 76, he lived here a 

 quiet retired life amongst his books and his birds ; his old enemies, 

 asthma and bronchitis — from which he had suffered more or less 



1 So says "Crockford," Foster's Alumni says 1850. 



