The first thing to know is that William Smith did not have a middle name.
In any record of William Smith we know to be true, there is never a mention of a middle name.
Some have attributed the middle name ‘Kempton’ to him, but research has shown that William Kempton Smith was a completely different person.
William Kempton Smith Esq. was a magistrate and JP who was appointed as such in 1848. At that time he was living ‘near Gundagai’.
He was born c1822 and died on the 13th Jun 1888 at his residence ‘Claraville’, St. Peters near Sydney.
He owned properties named Clydesdale and Bongongo Station (Adjungbilly) near Tumut and later Darbalara near Gundagai.
His wife’s name was also Mary Ann. She died in 1900.
They had seven children all registered in Tumut, in the years 1858-1871.
On William Smith’s marriage record, he claims his parents are James Smith & Agnes Hill.
His death certificate claims he was born in Somersetshire.
Research shows that there was a James Smith who married Agnes Hill in Wiveliscombe, Somerset on 25th Aug 1806. They had 8 children, all baptized in Wiveliscombe.
They did have a son named William, but he was baptized on 8th Mar 1807, so far too early to be the one we are looking for. This William married a Mary Hill in 1830 and died in Wiveliscombe in Oct 1877.
We expect our William to be born around 1828, according to various ages on his official records.
James & Agnes had a son named Joseph in 1828, but no William.
It is difficult to surmise what the truth is here.
Were William’s parent’s someone other than James & Agnes Smith, but he had a close relationship with them, perhaps brought up by them if his parents had died?
If this was the case though we might expect William to be living with James & Agnes in the 1841 census, but he is not.
Or is William actually Joseph, born in 1828?
This Joseph Smith appears as a 13 year old boy living with his parents in the 1841 England census. But after 1841 I can find no trace of him.
We do not know when William arrived in NSW.
As expected there are so many William Smith’s who arrive in NSW during this period it is impossible to work out if one of them was him.
His death certificate states that he lived in NSW for 45 years, placing his arrival in the colony about 1861, but information on death certificates can often just be a guess, and I wonder if this is also.
The earliest age reference we have for William is on his marriage register in 1867, where he claimed to be aged 34. This would be out by about 5 years if he was actually born in 1828. But as Mary Ann was aged 33 it is possible he shaved off a few years to bring his age closer to hers.
William’s obituary’s in various newspapers give us a look into his life in the Tumut area. Here is a summary:
In the sixties (i.e. 1860’s), he married the relict of the late Mr. Charles Packett, and following the calling of husbandman, he spent about 45 years on the farm next to Mr. W. Bridle's, at Bombowlee.
He leased a farm of 45 acres on Bombowlee from Mrs. S. Lampe, of Talbingo, and there he resided for 16 years, his landlord being sorry to lose so good a tenant. Leaving his last tenure, he secured a rental of the late Mr. S. Williamson's property on Bombowlee, where he labored for about 11 years.
The bane of his life was rheumatism, and it so incapacitated him that he was forced to relinquish agricultural labors, and, after calling a sale and disposing of his agricultural implements and so forth, secured an allotment on the Kiandra Road, about 1¾ mile distant from the town; thereon he erected a comfortable residence.
In 1878, a fire occurred on his yard premises, and he lost a considerable amount of the produce he had stored but he was young and agile at the time, and succeeded in pulling out a double-shaft dray laden with wheat. His neighbour, a man named Donnelly (a tinsmith), stood on the opposite bank of the creek and gazed on the scene with the appearance of a serene indifference, as though gloating over the misery the subject of our obituary seemed doomed to suffer. He lost some 150 bushels of wheat and a quantity of other produce in the fire. He had thrashed out his grain and left it in bags in his shed, where a quantity of oaten straw was stacked. This straw was first observed to be on fire, and the flames spread with such rapidity that they speedily consumed the shed and all the grain it contained. He had been so far lucky as to have sold and delivered about 500 bushels of wheat prior to the fire, but still his loss is a serious one. It is supposed that the fire was caused by a box of matches, which had been left in the shed by the men who were assisting to thresh the wheat, having somehow become ignited.
For the last couple of years he and his wife have been residing in a neat cottage they had built about a mile from town, fronting the Blowering road.
In June 1905, he had the misfortune to break his leg after slipping on a crutch he was using, and he never was able to leave his bed afterwards, confining him there for about 10 months.
He was 79 years old when he died.