William Saumarez SMITH

SMITH, WILLIAM SAUMAREZ (b. St Heliers, Jersey 14 Jan 1836, d. Darlinghurst, NSW, 18 April 1909). Anglican archbishop. 

William Smith was the son of Lt Richard Snowden Smith of the Rifle Brigade, later a prebendary of Chichester Cathedral, and his wife Anne, née Robin. He later exalted these humble origins by the use of the characteristic Channel Island name Saumarez. He was educated at Marlborough College and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was a 'reading man', still the exception in the mid-century university: 1st cl in the Classical Tripos, 1858 and in the theological examination, 1859, fellow of Trinity, 1860-70; MA, 1862; BD, 1872; and DD by examination, 1889, together with numerous successes in the university prize competitions for biblical languages and English verse. 

Having decided to become a clergyman while a boy, he was ordained deacon and priest by the bp of Ely in 1859 and 1860. After a curacy at St Paul's, Cambridge, he went to India as domestic chaplain (1861-65) to the bp of Madras. At the end of his term Bp Gell praised his educational work with the natives and the influence exercised over the public mind by his writings. The lessons for missionary service were disseminated in Obstacles to Missionary Success among the Heathen (1868). 

On returning to England Smith became curate in that evangelical stronghold, Holy Trinity, Cambridge (1866), before taking up the college living of Trumpington (1867-9). In 1869 he was appointed principal of St Aidan's Theological College, Birkenhead, on the recommendation of his Cambridge mentor, J B Lightfoot. Shortly afterwards he m. Florence, daughter of the Rev Lewis Deedes. Over the next 25 years he marked himself out as an able administrator by raising St Aidan's from a low ebb to prosperity and success, and by wiping out a large debt. The many ordinands trained by Smith referred to him affectionately as 'The Prince'. Apart from advocating the role of theological colleges in clerical education and serving as hon canon of Chester Cathedral (1880-90), he took little part in the wider affairs of the church. As a theologian his perspective was clearly evangelical but showed signs of adjustment to the new Cambridge theology of Lightfoot and Westcott. While the atonement remained central, he placed it in the setting of the incarnation. A high view of scriptural authority was reconciled with the claims of a reverent higher criticism and scientific modes of thought. Smith opposed earnest unbelief without scorning it. 

The combination of scholarship, administrative competence and an evangelical outlook made Smith attractive to the synod of the diocese of Sydney which nominated him to succeed Bp Barry (q.v.) in 1889. His success in the election which followed was disputed by some bishops who protested against a procedure they feared Sydney would use to foist upon them an unsuitable primate. They had little choice but to accept the outcome when Smith was unopposed in a second election, but the memory that he had been imposed marred the primacy which followed. A further setback came with the death of his wife ten days before his consecration in St Paul's Cathedral, London, on 24 June 1890. 

Smith arrived in Sydney three months later. He had come to a society on the eve of deep economic recession and beset by industrial strife, and to a divided diocese increasingly distracted by party activity. He was its bishop (and from 1897, its archbishop) for the next nineteen years. In virtue of this office he was also Metropolitan of the Province of NSW and Primate of Australia and Tasmania. 

Smith began carefully but energetically visiting most parishes within the first year. An organicist ecclesiology, which held that the function of the church is to Christianise society, guided his work at all levels. Although heavily qualified, it was a world-affirming view based on a hopeful assessment of society. Smith believed that the Church of England in the Australian colonies, while not established, was well placed to carry out its function because of its large membership and social prestige. Much was at stake: he thought the healthy development of national life depended on it. 

Smith taught that the starting point for this permeation of society by Christianity was individual effort and personal responsibility. He deplored religious nominalism and continually urged the deepening of the inward spiritual life and the application of Christian principles to the circumstances of everyday existence. Only on this basis should people do whatever they could for the church and the world. In this Smith led the way. It was soon recognised that a deep personal piety and biblical faith stood behind the efficient and hardworking administrator and chief pastor of the diocese. He neither sought nor attracted wider public attention. Smith's ecclesiology suited his naturally retiring temperament. 

The second important requirement was cooperation. From the beginning Smith impressed on churchmen their responsibility to the diocese as the condition of successful church work. To foster this diocesanism, as contrasted to the endemic parochial emphasis, he located St Andrew's Cathedral at the centre of Sydney's Anglican church life, looked to Moore College as the source of clergy, and promoted the increasingly powerful synod as a forum for free discussion prior to legislation. In presiding over these meetings Smith was at his best, but in other endeavours he was continually frustrated by shortage of funds. Yet he was able to put the diocese on a better financial footing and pay off the large debt on the cathedral as the colony emerged from the depression of the 1890s. His answer to the by now widespread party activity was to emphasise what he believed to be the comprehensiveness of the Church of England's Reformation heritage. He welcomed all schools of thought for what they could contribute to the common cause. To the irritation of more militant evangelicals he refused to 'put down ritualism' while the law was unclear. Excess of authority was as bad as excess of ritual as a cause of disharmony in the church. Of course there were limits to Smith's willingness to cooperate. He sanctioned combined activities with other Protestant bodies provided the distinctiveness and independence of the Church of England were not compromised, but regarded working with the Roman Catholic Church in religious causes as impracticable. When necessary Smith stood up to his pugnacious Roman Catholic counterpart, Cardinal Moran, although never to the extent expected by extreme Protestants. 

The goal Smith set for the church's mission to society was to make all religion practical, and all business religious. It would be reached primarily through the normal church work of worship and teaching. Church extension and increase of lay agency and 'women's work' (especially after the formation of the Mothers' Union in 1896) were his methods of advancing this work. More directly he encouraged Anglicans to seize opportunities for personal evangelism and for teaching religion in state schools. He accepted the church's responsibility to apply Christian principles to social and economic problems, and in 1898 took on the presidency of the colonial branch of the Christian Social Union. Smith was not, however, a Christian socialist. Nor did he think the church should interfere in civil government except to protect the religious rights of the community. Thus he actively opposed relaxation of divorce and Sunday observance laws, and sought legislation to facilitate the twin causes of temperance and social purity. Thinking it his proper role Smith encouraged much and initiated little. He was not an activist archbishop. 

Beyond his diocese Smith sought 'unity in variety'. He welcomed federation as an opportunity for Australia to rise to Christian ideals of nationhood. He nurtured continuity with the mother church, returning to England five times, twice to attend Lambeth Conferences (1897, 1908). ABM and missions to Aborigines and Papua New Guinea furnished new outlets for his missionary interest. As Metropolitan and Primate he put behind him the circumstances of his election. He travelled widely, visiting every diocese at least once. He opposed increasing the powers of the General Synod at the expense of the constituent dioceses, but urged (unsuccessfully) the retention of Sydney as the primatial see. He steered the national church towards the formation of seven new dioceses and the foundation of Vic and Qld as ecclesiastical provinces. Under his guidance the province of NSW modernised its constitution (1902). 

In his final years Smith ran out of steam. He travelled less, and spent more time on his scholarly interests and hobbies. He would not have a coadjutor bishop. He died of a cerebral haemorrhage at Darlinghurst, the first occupant of the see to die in the diocese. 

In Smith, Sydney obtained the scholar-administrator it had wanted. His was a time of consolidation rather than advance. Men of different outlook, who mistook the abp's distinctive approach for weakness and indecision, viewed it less favourable and sought to take the diocese in a different direction which had some of the characteristics of a sect. Smith's inability to persuade the diocese to adopt his inclusive churchmanship was his greatest failure. It may be that Sydney's refusal to accept that inclusivism was a lost opportunity. 

ADB 11; A J A Fraser, Archbishop William Saumarez Smith ... Some Memories by his Sole Living Ordinand (Wagga Wagga, 1981); W J Lawton, The Better Time To Be. Utopian Attitudes to Society Among Sydney Anglicans 1885-1914 (Kensington, 1990); A Patrick, ‘The Ideals of a Neglected Archbishop: William Saumarez Smith, a Comprehensive Church and a Christianised Society,’ CSAC Working Papers, S1, n7, 1991 

G R TRELOAR  Updated 10/7/2024