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Dictionary of Miramichi Biography

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SMITH, JOHN (1784-1861)

SMITH, JOHN, Madras school teacher and churchman; b. London, England, c1784; m. Margaret Ann - , a native of Nova Scotia; d. Bathurst, N.B., 17 Dec 1861.

John Smith could have been the bachelor by that name who was married to the widow Mrs. Margaret Oliver at St Paul's Church in Halifax in August 1814. His eldest daughter, Mary Smith, was born in Halifax in October 1815, and he moved from there to the Miramichi in the fall of 1818 for the purpose of opening a Madras School.

The Madras schools originated in England as church schools for the poor, in which student monitors were used as teachers' assistants. The schools were officially established by legislation in New Brunswick in 1820, several years after the first of them had opened in the province. The legislation stipulated that they were to provide "useful learning" to children of both sexes and inculcate in them "the principles of true religion and morality." Madras teachers, who were usually better qualified than parish school teachers, taught from books supplied by the National Education Society in England. For this reason these schools were sometimes referred to as "National" schools.

Smith, who held a teaching certificate from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, opened his Madras school in October 1818 in Chatham, but after a few months he moved it to the vicinity of the courthouse in Newcastle. The Rev. John Burnyeat reported in 1820 that Smith was teaching thirty-five children in a small room in his own home. In Burnyeat's opinion, he was competent and industrious and was "no less distinguished for integrity and sobriety of conduct," but he needed more teaching space, as well as an adequate supply of "National Elementary School-books."

In 1823, or shortly afterwards, Smith returned the Madras school to Chatham. In 1824 he was receiving both the annual government grant for which parish school teachers were eligible and a payment from a Church of England education fund for teaching the catechism. He said that with both grants "he was, with strict economy, enabled to support himself and a numerous family." He complained in 1828, however, that the government grants, which were larger than the church grants, had been refused him since 1825 because he was receiving the former, and that he, his wife, and five children were now "indigent." He insisted that a school such as his was needed on the Miramichi and made an appeal to emotion as well by stating that he was "one of the sufferers on the memorable night of the 7th October 1825, and lost all that he possessed with the exception of the clothes which he and his family had on at the time." By 1832, at least, he was again receiving the provincial grant.

Smith was a disciplined professional whose monitorial school was popular with the public, and whose work was respected within the educational establishment of the day. An 1847 report describes how he was grouping sixty-three pupils (forty-five boys and eighteen girls) for instruction in writing and grammar, as well as in reading from the scriptures and National Education Society textbooks. Although the school was under the control of the Anglican parish, children of other denominations were not excluded.

Smith was an early leader in the Anglican community on the Miramichi. Before St Paul's Church was organized he conducted Sunday Bible readings for children at the courthouse in Newcastle. Later he was church clerk for many years and led the responses of the congregation during services. In the 1830s he was active in the temperance movement, serving as secretary of the original Miramichi Temperance Society and later of the combined Chatham Temperance and Total Abstinence societies.

Smith continued to conduct the Madras school until his retirement in 1855. Later he and his wife lived in Bathurst, where their sons George and Alfred J. Smith were merchants and shipbuilders. He died in Bathurst in 1861, at age seventy-seven, and she in 1868, at age eighty-three. They raised at least six children in all, including Mary Smith, the wife of George B. Bell.

Sources

[d] Gleaner 21 Dec 1861 / Advocate 24 Feb 1897 (re. Mrs Mary Bell), 3 May 1933; Gleaner 1 Mar 1836, 12 Mar 1839, 19 May 1855, 25 Aug 1855, 15 Aug 1868; Liebenberg; MacNaughton; Manny Collection (F168); Mercury 30 Jan 1827; PANB (teachers' petitions; 28th Report of the Madras School, 1847); Spray (DK)


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