Topic: Sydney Smith

Sydney Smith (June 3, 1771, Woodford, Essex, England – February 22, 1845 London), was an English writer and Anglican clergyman.

Sydney was the son of merchant Robert Smith (1739-1827) and Maria Olier (1750-1801), who suffered from epilepsy. Robert, described as "a man of restless ingenuity and activity", "very clever, odd by nature, but still more odd by design", owned at various times nineteen different estates in England.

Sydney himself attributed much of his own lively personality to his French blood, his maternal grandfather having been a French Protestant refugee named Olier. Sydney was the second of four brothers and one sister, all remarkable for their talents. Two of the brothers, Robert Percy, known as "Bobus", and Cecil, were sent to Eton, but Sydney was sent with the youngest to Winchester, where he rose to be captain of the school. He and his brother so distinguished that their school-fellows signed a round-robin "refusing to try for the college prizes if the Smiths were allowed to contend for them any more".