The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Smith, Hon. Sir Francis Villeneuve
Smith, Hon. Sir Francis Villeneuve, B.A., late Chief Justice of Tasmania, eldest son of the late Francis Smith, formerly of Lindfield, Sussex, and a London merchant, and latterly of Campania, Tasmania, by his wife, a daughter of M. Jean Villeneuve, was born on Oct. 3rd, 1819. He was educated at London University where he took a first prize in International Law and a second prize in English Equity, and graduated B.A. in 1840. In Nov. 1838 he entered at the Middle Temple, and was called to the Bar in May 1842, being admitted to that of Tasmania in Oct. 1844. He was appointed Solicitor-General for the colony of Tasmania in 1848, and Attorney-General in 1854, only taking office on condition of being at liberty to oppose the influx of convicts into the colony. In 1851 he was nominated to the Legislative Council and became a member of the Executive Council in 1855. Sir Francis, who had opposed the introduction of responsible government on the ground that the colony did not possess a leisured class from whom suitable ministers could be drawn, and that the system would involve constant changes of administration, was nevertheless a member of the first House of Assembly and Attorney-General in the first responsible ministry formed under Colonel Champ in Nov. 1856, and which held office till Feb. 1857. From April to May 1857 he was Attorney-General in the first Weston Ministry, and then formed a Government of his own, in which he was Premier and Attorney-General, till Nov. 1860, when he went on to the bench as a Puisne Judge, being appointed Chief Justice in 1870. This post he held till 1885, when he was succeeded by Sir W. L. Dobson. Sir Francis, who was knighted in 1862, and who now resides is England, administered the government of the colony on three occasions during interregnums in the governorship. He married, on May 4th, 1851, Sarah, daughter of the late Rev. George Giles, LL.D.