William Henry Smith (7 July 1792 – 28 July 1865) was a British

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...

whose business included both

newsagents A newsagent's shop or simply newsagent's or paper shop (British English), newsagency (Australian English) or newsstand (American and Canadian English) is a business that sells newspapers, magazines, cigarettes, snacks and often items of local ...

and

book shops Bookselling is the commercial trading of books which is the retail and distribution end of the publishing process. People who engage in bookselling are called booksellers, bookdealers, bookpeople, bookmen, or bookwomen. The founding of librar ...

. He was born in Little Thurlow,

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...

, but ran his business in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, where he died. The family business evolved into the chain

W H Smith WHSmith (also written WH Smith, and known colloquially as Smith's and formerly as W. H. Smith & Son) is a British retailer, headquartered in Swindon, England, which operates a chain of high street, railway station, airport, port, hospital and m ...

Career

Family vault of William Henry Smith in Kensal Green Cemetery

Born the son of

Henry Walton Smith Henry Walton Smith (1738 – 23 August 1792) was the founder of W. H. Smith, one of the United Kingdom's largest bookselling and newspaper vending businesses. Career Brought up in Wrington in Somerset, Henry Walton Smith moved to London and beca ...

and Anna Eastaugh, William Henry Smith was brought up by his mother following the death of his father when he was only a few weeks old. His parents established a news vendor in Little Grosvenor Street, London, the precursor of

in 1792.History 1792-1900
/ref> In 1812, following the death of Zaccheus Coates, a business associate of his mother, he went into the family business in partnership with his mother and his brother. In 1816 his mother died and the business was equally divided between him and his brother Henry Edward Smith. William proved the more capable businessman of the two, and the firm became known as W H Smith.WH Smith: History
/ref> After his father's death, the business was valued at £1,280 (about ~£ in 2012, adjusted by inflation). In 1846, he admitted his son as a partner, and the firm became W H Smith & Son. Book stalls at railway stations proved an especially successful endeavour.Walbank, Alan. 1960. “Railway Reading.” ''

The Book Collector ''The Book Collector'' is a London based journal that deals with all aspects of the book. It is published quarterly and exists in both paper and digital form. It prints independent opinions on subjects ranging from typography to national heritage ...

'' 9 no.3 (Autumn): 285-291. He is buried at

Kensal Green Cemetery Kensal Green Cemetery is a cemetery in the Kensal Green area of Queens Park in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London, England. Inspired by Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, it was founded by the barrister George Frederic ...

, London.

Family

In 1817, William Henry married Mary Ann Cooper, a rigorous practitioner of Wesley's

Protestantism Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...

: they married at

St George's, Hanover Square St George's, Hanover Square, is an Anglican church, the parish church of Mayfair in the City of Westminster, central London, built in the early eighteenth century as part of a project to build fifty new churches around London (the Queen Anne C ...

and eventually they had eight children: seven girls, and one boy, who was also named William Henry Smith.

References

Bibliography

*''First with the News: The History of W.H.Smith, 1792–1972''. By Charles Wilson. WHS, 1985. {{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, William Henry 1792 births 1865 deaths British retail company founders Burials at Kensal Green Cemetery English businesspeople in retailing 19th-century English businesspeople