Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Smith, Walter Chalmers

by Thomas Finlayson Henderson

SMITH, WALTER CHALMERS (1824–1908), poet and preacher, son of Walter Smith, builder, by his wife Barbara Milne, was born in Aberdeen on 5 Dec. 1824. He was educated at the grammar school, Aberdeen, and at Marischal College, which he entered at the age of thirteen, graduating M.A. in 1841. His original intention was to adopt law as his profession, but under the influence of Dr. Chalmers he entered the New College, Edinburgh, to study for the ministry of the Free Church of Scotland. In 1850 he was ordained pastor of the Free (Scottish) Church in Chadwell Street, Pentonville, London. The small congregation did not become larger under his ministry. In 1853 he resigned and was appointed to Milnathort, in the parish of Orwell, Kinross-shire; and in 1857 he removed to Roxburgh Free Church, Edinburgh. In 1862 he was chosen to succeed the Free Church leader, Dr. Robert Buchanan (1802–1875) [q. v.], in the Free Tron Church, Glasgow. Smith was a thoughtful preacher, catholic in his sympathies, and of rather advanced opinions for the Free Church of his time, though in the end his influence was felt in broadening its outlook. Two ‘Discourses’ that he published in 1866, advocating more liberal views in regard to Sunday observance than those then prevailing in Scotland, came under the ban of his Presbytery, and he was ‘affectionately admonished’ by the General Assembly in June 1867. In 1876 he was translated to the Free High Church, Edinburgh. During the prosecution of Professor Robertson Smith [see Smith, William Robertson] his strong sympathy with the professor gave some offence to the orthodox church leaders; but in 1893 he had so won the confidence of the church that he was chosen moderator of the general assembly. The following year he retired from his charge, when he was presented with his portrait painted by Sir George Reid. He received the degrees of D.D. from the University of Glasgow (1869), and LL.D. from the universities of Aberdeen (1876) and Edinburgh (1893). He died on 20 Sept. 1908. He married Agnes Monteith and left a son and three daughters.

Under the pseudonym of ‘Orwell,’ Smith published, in 1861, a book of poems with the title ‘The Bishop's Walk’; and in 1872, under the pseudonym of ‘Hermann Knott,’ ‘Olrig Grange,’ which reached in 1888 a fourth edition. His other volumes of verse are:

1. ‘Borland Hall,’ 1874.
2. ‘Hilda amongst the Broken Gods,’ 1878.
3. ‘Raban or Life Splinters,’ 1880.
4. ‘North Country Folk,’ 1883.
5. ‘Kildrostan, a dramatic Poem,’ 1884.
6. ‘Thoughts and Fancies for Sunday Evening,’ 1887.
7. ‘A Heretic,’ 1890.

A selection of his poems appeared in 1890, and a complete edition in 1902; a volume of sermons was published posthumously in 1909. Smith's verse is smooth and pleasant, touched with humour and full of sympathy, simple and unpretending in style. Several of his pieces are merely tales or character sketches in verse, shrewdly humorous, but rather too colloquial in manner to be termed poetry.

[Who's Who, 1908; Scotsman, and Glasgow Herald, 20 Sept. 1908; Miles's Poets and Poetry of the Nineteenth Century, xii. 109 seq.; information from his daughter, Mrs. Carlyle.]

T. F. H.