I might never find Sidney Smith

Years ago, in fact I can date it — 27 April, 2018 — I came across a statue in a local park that changed the direction of my life.

In the far corner of Mark Street Gardens, near Old Street station, London, there’s an obelisk with few identifying features. Before the pandemic, people used to sit on benches around it every day and have their lunch. Due to a lack of discernible detail, I decided to check the council website and came across a conundrum that I have not been able to get out of my head to this day:

“In the gardens there’s a memorial to a Sidney Smith who died in 1870. “No one really knows who Sidney Smith was or what his connection to the area was”.

According to the writing on the obelisk, hidden at the bottom, Sidney Smith died on 1 December 1870, leaving a widow Susannah, who died a few years later in 1873.

That was enough to get started on Ancestry.co.uk, I thought. What would be enough in the long run, was a different question altogether.

Following a couple of hours poring through online archives, I found that Sidney Smith was born on 10 August 1808 in Sheerness, Kent, the son of Hannah and Charles. He married Susannah Smith on 10 July 1830 and they had one child. Sidney died on 1 December 1870 in London, at the age of 62.

But that is not really who Sidney was — I wanted to know more about the man himself, so I looked through the newspaper archives and found that he was a solicitor, specialising in bankruptcy and probate.

The measure of the man

As an attorney, Smith first worked out of Barnard’s Inn in Holborn (described in Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations as a “dreary sketch” reflecting a “half century of financial difficulties”), before moving to 1 Furnival’s Inn, also in Holborn.

His father was a timber merchant on Paternoster Row, the same street in which he began a career in law aged 16 — via a clerkship to William Morley Stubbs, father to a Bishop of Oxford.

Bankruptcy law in the 19th century was a grubby business. According to Markham Lester, bankruptcy was seen as a serious moral problem, and debtors were jailed if they couldn’t come up with the cash in time. If you couldn’t pay, the court ordered your assets (your home and material property) to be sold and the cash used to pay for your debts while you rotted in jail. One horrendous example being Hugh Parnell, who was jailed for 13 years from 1823–1836 for a debt totaling just £15.

The problem was that officers in bankruptcy courts were not salaried and were therefore paid out of the proceeds of the estate sale. An 1856 survey by the Leeds Chamber of Commerce found that only 49% of assets successfully collected reached the creditors — with the rest remaining as grease in the legal machines. It was considered so corrupt and inefficient in fact, that the system was overhauled and reformed by the Bankruptcy Act 1869.

But the most expensive outgoing for a debtor was in hiring an attorney, whose main job was in writing up the legal advertisements and in administering your liquidation. Smith acted on a number of these cases — in one case finding his own plaintiff to be “entitled” to a debt and therefore liable to pay out of his father’s inheritance.

In 1867, Smith appeared in court as a creditor — meaning that he had advanced to a position as a money lender.

So what else is there to know about Smith beyond a chosen career of legalised extortion, his family life, and his lack of connection to Shoreditch?

Smith was admitted to the Freedom of the City of London in the company of Farriers in 1863 “by redemption” (meaning he paid for it). He was appointed clerk to the Farriers in 1855, but tendered his resignation shortly afterward on January 3 1856 following “altercations” at a meeting at The George & Vulture pub on Pitfield Street. His resignation was unanimously rejected and he continued as clerk for the Farrier guild until 1865 — just five years before his death aged 62.

How the hell did he end up in Shoreditch?

Smith lived for the latter part of his life in Loretto Lodge in Hammersmith — not far from where I lived in 2018. I used to travel to the Hammersmith Archives on occasion to go through old films of their burial records.

What I have not yet proven (and I have thought about this for a good long time) is how Smith’s obelisk ended up in Old Street when the man lived in Hammersmith. I have searched dozens of burial records at numerous locations, perused trolleys of council records during four visits to Hackney Archives, I have been to the British Library, to several graveyards, the City of London twice and the Metropolitan Archives twice — and yet I still have no idea where he is buried. And yes, I have checked DeceasedOnline.

The truth is, I still have no proof where Sidney Smith was buried, but I have a working theory that I would like to prove before I die myself:

I know that an obelisk was located at the park site in 1982 when phase I of construction was completed. A September 1983 report by Hackney’s Planning and Transport Committee said it would “re-use existing stone obelisks which will be stone-cleaned and act as commemorative sculptures”.

The council also reports that the site at that time was a famous “Architectural Salvage emporium”. The nave of St Michael's had been used as a storage warehouse since 1964.

It makes the most sense therefore that Sidney in fact had no connection to the area, and his obelisk was moved to the area after a cemetery was cleared. My money is on Margravine Cemetery, which was cleared of monuments up to 1965. I'm 90% sure I checked Margravine's records more than once.

FindaGrave.com references a book called "Tombstone Removal-Levelling of Graves for the City of London, Hammersmith Old Cemetery", but I cannot find that book in the British Library, or indeed anywhere else. I also cannot find old Sidney on FindaGrave.com.

I contacted the owners of the former emporium and was told that the person most involved with the park’s creation has since died and they have no records for the obelisks. The council’s contractor for the 1983 work was Constable Landscaping Ltd and I have been in contact with the son of the owner. He also said that all involved with the project have now died.

Other loose ends I have pulled include the church’s records and all of Hackney Archive’s content related to the church. Sidney had no provable connection to St Michael’s — a new church located on the other side of town.

So, to recap my current working theory — Sidney Smith had no connection to the area and his obelisk was taken from a cemetery that had been cleared — which cemetery I know not, but it was likely to be outside of London (Hammersmith was outside) as most inner-London cemeteries were closed by 1855. It was likely transferred by the council to an architectural salvage yard located inside St Michael’s. The obelisk was then chosen by the council to be reused in the park. I cannot prove it, but it feels like the most likely idea.

One day I will find where that racketeer was buried.

Ending Note: I have contacted Hackney Council to pass on my findings, but the park’s website remains unchanged.