Edward Smedley

Edward Smedley (1788–1836) was an English clergyman known as a miscellaneous writer.

The second son of the Rev. Edward Smedley by his wife Hannah, fourth daughter of George Bellas of Willey, Surrey, was born in the Sanctuary, Westminster, on 12 September 1788. His father held the post of usher of Westminster School from 1774 to 1820, and was a reader of the Rolls Chapel. In 1816 he was made rector of North Bovey and of Powderham in Devon. He died on 8 August 1825.

Edward was sent to Westminster School as a home boarder in 1795, before he had completed his seventh year. He became a king's scholar in 1800, and was elected head to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1805. He obtained the wooden spoon in 1809, graduating B.A. in the same year, and M.A. in 1812. As a middle bachelor he gained one of the members' prizes for Latin prose in 1810, and in the following year he gained a similar distinction as a senior bachelor. He was elected to a fellowship of Sidney Sussex College in 1812, and won the Seatonian prize for English verse in 1813, 1814, 1827, and 1828.

Smedley was ordained deacon in September 1811, and took priest's orders in the following year. Through his father's old friend, Gerrard Andrewes, Smedley became preacher at St James's Chapel, Tottenham Court Road, and in July 1815 was appointed clerk in orders of St. James's parish, Westminster. Smedley vacated his fellowship on his marriage, on 8 January 1816. Shortly afterwards he became evening lecturer at St Giles's, Camberwell, a post which he held for a few years only. In 1819 he resigned his appointment of clerk in orders of St. James's parish, and took to teaching in addition to his literary and clerical work.

In 1822 he accepted the editorship of the Encyclopædia Metropolitana. He began his duties with the seventh part, and continued to hold the post of editor until his death. Owing to his increasing deafness, he was compelled in 1827 to give up taking pupils, and in the following year he became totally deaf.

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