Robert Pearsall Smith

Robert Pearsall Smith (1827–1898) was a lay leader in the Holiness movement in the United States and the Higher Life movement in Great Britain. His book Holiness Through Faith (1870) is one of the foundational works of the Holiness movement. He was also a businessman in the Philadelphia area, publishing maps and managing a glass factory.

Robert Pearsall Smith was the son of John Jay Smith and Rachel Pearsall. Descended from long line of influential Quakers, in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, he was a descendant of John Smith, who started one of the first insurance companies in Philadelphia and was one of the founders of the Philadelphia Hospital. He was also a descendant of James Logan, secretary of William Penn and the founder of the first lending library in America, the Loganian Library.

During the 1840s, Robert's father was the librarian of the Philadelphia Library Company, which now had oversight of their ancestral library, the Loganian. The library employed the prestigious architect and surveyor James Charles Sidney who also produced maps that Robert published; many are now valuable historical artifacts.

In 1851, Smith married Hannah Tatum Whitall, a woman who also descended from a line of prominent Quakers in the region. The Smiths settled in Germantown, Pennsylvania. From 1864 to 1868, they lived in Millville, New Jersey where Robert managed Hannah's father's business, the Whitall, Tatum & Company glass factories.

They were much influenced by Methodist revivalists and adopted the doctrine in Wesleyan theology of sanctification. They were also influenced by William E. Boardman, who wrote The Higher Christian Life (1859) who apparently groomed Robert and Hannah Smith to join the Holiness movement as speakers.

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