OCTAVIUS SMITH AND ACHRANICH

A very different sort of person now enters the story, a wealthy and original member of the English intellectual aristocracy, who had little in common with his fellow-proprietors in Morvern except, perhaps, strength of character. Octavius Smith's father, William Smith (1756–1835), after a successful career in wholesale grocery in London, became the first Unitarian to sit as a member of parliament, where he represented Sudbury, Camelford and (chiefly) Norwich for forty-six years, an abolitionist, an emancipator and an outstanding philanthropist in earlynineteenth-century radical politics. His ten children—none of whom lived for less than sixty-eight years, and whose average length of life was eighty-two—included Benjamin, also a distinguished politician and the father of Leigh Smith the explorer and of Madame Bodichon the benefactress of Girton College; Frances, the mother of Florence Nightingale; and two unmarried daughters, Patty and Julia, who were favourites in intellectual society. Two other daughters married respectively G. T. Nicholson of Waverley Abbey and John Bonham Carter; and there were connections by marriage with the Verneys, the Lushingtons and the Cloughs.

William Smith, having been obliged to meet election expenses amounting to £40,000 (towards which he sold a notable collection of pictures), had nothing left for his children; his whole estate, which he bequeathed to his wife, came to no more than £5,000.