George Murray Smith (19 March 1824 – 6 April 1901) was a British publisher. He was the son of George Smith (1789–1846), who, with Alexander Elder (1790–1876), started the Victorian publishing firm of Smith, Elder & Co. in 1816. His brainchild, ''

The Cornhill Magazine ''The Cornhill Magazine'' (1860–1975) was a monthly Victorian magazine and literary journal named after the street address of the founding publisher Smith, Elder & Co. at 65 Cornhill in London.Laurel Brake and Marysa Demoor, ''Dictiona ...

'', was the premier fiction-carrying magazine of the 19th century.

Life

Smith was born in 1824, the eldest son of George Smith. He adopted the middle name Murray from his mother Elizabeth. His father had started the printing business with Alexander Elder.Bill Bell, 'Smith, George Murray (1824–1901)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 201
accessed 22 June 2015
/ref> The firm was extremely successful. Smith succeeded his father and expanded the product and sales areas to cover most Victorian topics and the

British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts e ...

. The firm also supplied a catalogue full of other products desirable to British expatriates. One of Smith's most ambitious projects was the '' Dictionary of National Biography'', which covered notable British figures up to its day in 63 volumes published from 1885 to 1900. George Smith is widely acknowledged to have inspired the character of Graham Bretton in

Charlotte Brontë Charlotte Brontë (, commonly ; 21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855) was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novels became classics of English literature. She enlisted i ...

's novel '' Villette'' (as he himself believed). From 1890 until his death, Smith lived at Somerset House, in

Park Lane Park Lane is a dual carriageway road in the City of Westminster in Central London. It is part of the London Inner Ring Road and runs from Hyde Park Corner in the south to Marble Arch in the north. It separates Hyde Park to the west from ...

, having bought the lease from Lady Hermione Graham, a daughter of the twelfth Duke of Somerset. The house became known as 40, Park Lane. He died at St. George's Hill, Byfleet, Surrey on 6 April 1901. George Murray Smith the Younger was his son.

Citations

Sources

ODNB The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...

Bill Bell, 'Smith, George Murray (1824–1901)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, May 2006 which cites as printed book sources: :* L. Huxley '' The house of Smith Elder'' (1923) :* J. W. Robertson Scott ''The story of the

Pall Mall Gazette ''The Pall Mall Gazette'' was an evening newspaper founded in London on 7 February 1865 by George Murray Smith; its first editor was Frederick Greenwood. In 1921, '' The Globe'' merged into ''The Pall Mall Gazette'', which itself was absorbed in ...

'' Oxford University Press (1950) :* J. Glynn ''Prince of publishers: a biography of George Smith'', Alison & Busby (1986)

External links

* Memoir of George Smith by Sidney Lee {{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, George Murray 1824 births 1901 deaths British book publishers (people) Dictionary of National Biography 19th-century British businesspeople