Sculptor born in London, a son of the sculptor James Smith II (1775–1815). He trained in the studios of William Tollemache (1782–1816) and Josephus John Pinnix Kendrick (1790–1832) and entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1816, winning a silver medal for a model in the life class in 1821. In these same years he was awarded three medals by the Society of Arts: a medal for an original model in 1817, the gold Isis medal for a group of two figures in 1821 and a large gold medal for a group, The Fight for the Body of Patroclus, in 1822. Between 1820 and 1876 he exhibited 32 works at the Royal Academy, using the name Charles Smith until 1841, but adding his middle name from 1842 onwards, to distinguish himself more clearly, Emma Hardy has plausibly suggested (in Roscoe, p. 1142), from the sculptor Charles Harriot Smith (1792–1864). Some of his most important commissions were for country houses, beginning in 1838 with an order for 10 statues of Tudor monarchs and notables from Sir Robert Newman at Mamhead Park, Devon (two only remain, Cardinal Wolsey and a bishop, the others having been sold in 1985). This was followed by life-size statues of Michelangelo and Raphael for the 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne at Bowood, Wiltshire, in 1841; four statues, two hunting groups, a fountain and other ornamental work for the 2nd Marquess of Westminster at Eaton Hall, Cheshire, in 1852; and a large fountain, St George Slaying the Dragon, for the 2nd Earl of Leicester at Holkham Hall, Norfolk, in 1856. Smith’s submissions to the Westminster Hall competition in 1844, his Raphael, together with A Falconer (commissioned by J.C. Bulteel of Flete in Devon), failed to secure a commission but garnered favourable reviews from the critics. Smith also produced a large number of funerary monuments, including effigies of Jacob Britton for Durham Cathedral (1839), Aline Hoghton for St Luke’s, Farnworth, Lancashire (1852–55), and the work for which he is best known, Grace Darling, for the churchyard of St Aidan, Northumberland (1844; the original was relocated within the church, and a replica, carved from the original model, took its place outside in 1885). Smith died on 15 April 1888 and was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, London.
Bibliography: The Builder, 18 September 1852, p. 595 (‘Eaton Hall’); B. Cherry and N. Pevsner, Devon (The Buildings of England), New Haven and London, 2004, pp. 450, 558, 885; R. Cocke, Public Sculpture of Norfolk and Suffolk, Liverpool, 2013, pp. 109–10; Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations, 1851. Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue (3 vols), 1851, vol 2, pp. 844, 846; Mapping Sculpture; E. Morris, ‘The sculpture collections at Eaton Hall, Cheshire, 1820–1914’, Sculpture Journal, vol. 19.1 (2010), [pp. 62–78], p. 69; E. Morris and E. Roberts, Public Sculpture of Cheshire and Merseyside, Liverpool, 2012, pp. xv, xxii, 113, 169; I. Roscoe et al, A Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain 1660–1851, New Haven and London, 2009, pp. 1141–44; P. Usherwood et al, Public Sculpture of North-East England, Liverpool, 2000, pp. xiii, xvi, 12–13.
Terry Cavanagh, May 2025