John Smith (1799 – 3 March 1870) was the

Rector Rector (Latin for the member of a vessel's crew who steers) may refer to: Style or title *Rector (ecclesiastical), a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations *Rector (academia), a senior official in an edu ...

of St Mary's church in

Baldock Baldock ( ) is a historic market town and unparished area in the local government district of North Hertfordshire in the county of Hertfordshire, England, where the River Ivel rises. It lies north of London, southeast of Bedford, and north n ...

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...

and is noted for being the first person to transcribe the

Diary A diary is a written or audiovisual record with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. Diaries have traditionally been handwritten but are now also often digital. A personal ...

Samuel Pepys Samuel Pepys (; 23 February 1633 – 26 May 1703) was an English diarist and naval administrator. He served as administrator of the Royal Navy and Member of Parliament and is most famous for the diary he kept for a decade. Pepys had no mariti ...

. Smith was the first to decipher the complete text of the

while a student at

Magdalene College, Cambridge Magdalene College ( ) is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1428 as a Benedictine hostel, in time coming to be known as Buckingham College, before being refounded in 1542 as the College of St Mary ...

, where the Diary is kept'The Diary of Samuel Pepys: Daily entries from the 17th century London'
/ref> (others had previously deciphered sections of it). Smith laboured on the Diaries for three years, from 1819 to 1822, and had assumed that they were written in code. He broke the code by comparing the section in the Diary concerning the escape of Charles II from

Worcester Castle Worcester Castle was a Norman fortification built between 1068 and 1069 in Worcester, England by Urse d'Abetot on behalf of William the Conqueror. The castle had a motte-and-bailey design and was located on the south side of the old Anglo-Saxon ...

with the longhand version of the same event Pepys published later. Later Smith was told that the diary was actually written in a

shorthand Shorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases speed and brevity of writing as compared to longhand, a more common method of writing a language. The process of writing in shorthand is called stenography, from the Greek ''ste ...

system devised by

Thomas Skelton Thomas R. Skelton (September 24, 1927 – August 9, 1994) was an American lighting designer. In a career spanning more than four decades, he was best known for his lighting designs for ballet and Broadway theatre productions. Biography Born in No ...

and that the textbook Pepys learnt it from was on the bookshelf above Smith's head. Smith's transcription, which is kept in the

Pepys Library The Pepys Library of Magdalene College, Cambridge, is the personal library collected by Samuel Pepys which he bequeathed to the college following his death in 1703. Background Samuel Pepys was a lifelong bibliophile and carefully nurtured his ...

, was the basis for the first published edition of the diary, edited by

Lord Braybrooke Baron Braybrooke, of Braybrooke in the County of Northampton, is a title in the Peerage of Great Britain. It was created in 1788 for John Griffin, 4th Baron Howard de Walden, with remainder to his kinsman Richard Neville-Aldworth. Lord Howard ...

, released in two volumes in 1825. Smith also worked on other material by Pepys, transcribing the so-called ''Tangier Diary'' of 1683 in the

Bodleian Library The Bodleian Library () is the main research library of the University of Oxford, and is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. It derives its name from its founder, Sir Thomas Bodley. With over 13 million printed items, it is the second- ...

Personal life

Smith married Elizabeth Frances Smith (c1795-1864) and with her had a son, Josiah William Smith QC (1816-1887), Judge of County Courts. Smith was Rector at St Mary's in Baldock from 1832 to 1870 and is buried beside his wife and son in the churchyard.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, John 1799 births 1870 deaths Alumni of Magdalene College, Cambridge Burials in Hertfordshire People from Baldock 19th-century English Anglican priests