  Ancestor Index
- Smithe and
Smith, Smyth and Smythe ... exploring possible
links between various branches ...
- © 2002 David
Drew-Smythe
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The Smyth family in
general appears to have had two substantial strings to
its bow - the church and commerce; serving both God and
mammon. The following shows a particular example relating
to Customer Smyth - originally of Corsham, Wiltshire. It
should be noted, too, that the Smyth family of Ashton
Court in Bristol held extensive mining rights over vast
tracts of Gloucestershire, Somerset and elswhere. They
also had substantial brewing interests. As may be seen on
the following pages, there is a close connection between
the two branches. The Bristol Smyth family, for example,
achieved notable alliances with such families as Gorges,
Phelips, Rodney, Rogers, Horner and Tynte.
| Source
"The Smelting of Copper
in the district of Swansea - from the time of
Queen Elizabeth I to the Present Day"
By Colonel Grant-Francis F.S.A. Published by
Henry Southern & Co., 1881. "Readers who have
had the patience to follow up the information
which I have gathered and utilized for their
knowledge, have, perhaps, scarcely brought their
minds to bear on the gigantic results which have
flowed from the localisation of the copper trade
by Customer Smyth and Ulricke Frosse,
at Neath, (A.D. 1586) Elizabeth's reign, when one
"John Bwaple, of Wales, had delyvered
into his Bark at St. Ives, a frayght of Copp'r
Owre of 15 tonnes and 8 hundreds waight in seven
daies." In the place of these scanty
supplies from Cornwall, we have now a magnificent
fleet of first-class ships constantly trading to
the port of Swansea from all parts of the world,
whose tonnage amounts to an aggregate for the
year of upwards of 200,000 tons of Copper,
Silver, Gold Lead, Zinc, Nickel, Cobalt and
Bismuth Ores. When, again, we reflect on the
number of persons engaged, not simply in
navigating the ships for this tonnage, but the
thousands of hands employed at the various Copper
and other adjacent Works, and the numerous
Collieries from which their daily supply of fuel
is extracted (to say nothing of the trades which
indirectly supply their numerous wants) we must,
indeed, be struck with the mighty success which
has followed the original planting of
"Copper Smelting in the Swansea
District".
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Notes: Smyth family trees are heavily populated
by "unknown" Smith/e, Smyth or Smythe -
or, in some cases, given the title
"Inconnu(e)". For example, we can find an Inconnu/e Smythe
of Bedford in England, born in 1411. On this same
family site is also mentioned an Alice
Smythe - born in the late 1400s - who
married into the Cavendish family. Her
brother-in-law, George Cavendish, served Wolsey,
who became Bishop of Lincoln after the death of
Bishop William Smyth in 1514.
This family tree is also
significant because it links to the renowned
"Bess of Hardwick".
"Elizabeth married
Sir William de Cavendish, son of Thomas
Cavendish and Alice Smythe, on August 20,
1548 in Bradgate Manor, Leicester, England.
(Sir William de Cavendish was born in 1505 in
Suffolk, England and died on October 25, 1557
in Chatsworth, Derby, England.) Elizabeth
also married Robert Barlow."
- Inconnu
de Smythe
- The original source link (November
2003) seems to have been cyber-jacked by
some tasteless individual.
- Born: 1411, Bedford,
England
- Inconnu married Sir
Robert Spencer, son of Edmund
de Beaufort Plantagenet and Eleanor
de Beauchamp. (Sir Robert Spencer was
born about 1435 in Spencercombe,
Devon, England and died in 1502-1510
in Spencercombe, Devon, England.).
The above
family lineage has connections with the Scudamore
family who held extensive lands in
Herefordshire - related to the Parry
family and the family Glendower.
The Scudamores would have been closely
associated with the Lygon
family - a daughter of John Lygon
of Richard Castle, Herefordshire, married
John Smyth who was originally from Corsham,
in Wiltshire and who was the brother of the
Elizabethan, (qv) "Customer"
Smyth.
There was a
celebration dinner held on Monday 13th April
1959 at the Farmers' Club in Hereford - the
winning jockey of the Grand National
(Britain's premier steeplechase held at
Aintree) that year was Michael Scudamore.
- [It
will be found that the Beaufort
and Beauchamp
families often feature somewhere in
Smyth lineage and the Neville
family features
extensively - and rather
mysteriously, too, in places.
-
- The
Neville lineage
also relates to the maternal line of
this site, culminating in Jean Anstruther
who married Richard David Somerset
Drew-Smythe
in 1949. Additionally, the Neville
line - through Ireland and onwards to
Australia - features in the 20th
century cousin lineage of the Drew
family of Drew-Smythe.]
NB The
family Cavendish
also connects to the maternal ancestry of
this site through the Dysart/Manners
line. Henrietta Cavendish,
the illegitimate daughter of William
Cavendish, Duke of
Devonshire, married (1706) Lionel, Lord Huntingtower.
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- Ancestor Index
-
 Medieval
Smyth Customer
(Wiltshire) Smith/e-Smyth/e- Smyth
(Durham and Yorkshire) of Ireland Essex
Smyth/e
- Smyth of
Bristol Shropshire
Smythe
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