Henry Walton Smith
{{Short description|British businessman (1738–1792)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
Henry Walton Smith (1738 – 23 August 1792) was an Englishman who was the founder of W. H. Smith, one of the United Kingdom's largest bookselling and newspaper vending businesses.
Career
Brought up in Wrington in Somerset, Henry Walton Smith moved to London and became a personal assistant to Charles Rogers, an English customs official and art collector.{{cite web |url=https://genealogy.links.org/links-cgi/readged?/home/ben/camilla-genealogy/current+c-smith3056+4-10-0-0-0 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220214040314/https://genealogy.links.org/links-cgi/readged?/home/ben/camilla-genealogy/current+c-smith3056+4-10-0-0-0 |archive-date=2022-02-14 |title=Henry Walton Smith 1738 – 1792 |author= |website=genealogy.links.org}}
In 1792, together with his wife Anna, he founded his news vending business in London.{{cite web |url=http://www.whsmithplc.co.uk/about_whsmith/history_of_whsmith |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101112035327/http://www.whsmithplc.co.uk:80/about_whsmith/history_of_whsmith |archive-date=2010-11-12 |title=History of WHSmith 1792–1900 |website=WHSmith plc}}
He died only a few months later on 23 August 1792.
Family
In 1784 he married Anna Eastaugh, a servant girl (1756-c. 1816), leading to the loss of his inheritance.{{cite web|url=https://en.azvision.az/news/57200/secrets-of-our-favorite-brands-revealed--top-secret.html|title=Secrets of our favorite brands revealed|date=21 January 2017|publisher=AZ Vision|accessdate=31 January 2018}} They went on to have two sons, Henry Edward Smith and William Henry Smith, and one daughter, Mary Anne Smith.{{cite book |last=Reade |first=Compton |date=1904 |title=The Smith Family, being a popular account of most branches of the name – however spelt – from the fourteenth century downwards, with numerous pedigrees now published for the first time |url=https://archive.org/details/smithfamilybeing00read/page/142/mode/2up |location=London |publisher=Elliot Stock |page=142}}{{cite web |url=https://genealogy.links.org/links-cgi/readged?/home/ben/camilla-genealogy/current+c-eastaugh3057+4-10-0-0-0 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220214050302/https://genealogy.links.org/links-cgi/readged?/home/ben/camilla-genealogy/current+c-eastaugh3057+4-10-0-0-0 |archive-date=2022-02-14 |title=Anna Eastaugh (Easter) 1756 – c. 1816 |author= |website=genealogy.links.org}}
References
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Further reading
- {{cite book |last=Wilson |first=Charles |author-link=Charles Wilson (historian) |date=1985 |title=First with the News: The History of W.H. Smith, 1792-1972 |location=London |publisher=Jonathan Cape |isbn=978-0-22402-156-2}}
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Category:British retail company founders
Category:English businesspeople
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