Egerton Smith (19 June 1774 – 18 November 1841)[Picton, James Allanson. (1875). Memorials of Liverpool: Historical and Topographical, including a History of the Dock Estate. London: Longmans, Green. p. 130] was a Liverpool publisher, founder of the Liverpool Mercury.
Biography
Egerton Smith was the son of Egerton Smith the elder (died 1788) and Ann Prescott. He joined his mother and then his brother in the family firm, making navigational instruments, and took out a
patent for one invention in 1809.
[Morison-Low, A. D., Making Scientific Instruments in the Industrial Revolution, 67-68] However, he increasingly turned towards printing and publishing. He founded the
Liverpool Mercury newspaper in 1811, and a weekly magazine,
The Kaleidoscope, in 1818. Smith was also active in founding mechanics institutes
['F. S.', 'Egerton Smith', Notes and Queries, series 4, VI (1850), p. 458] and became a well-known local
philanthropist.
[Obituary, Liverpool Mercury, 26 November 1841]
He was one of the founders of the Strangers' Friend Society, a local charity which helped the poor at their homes.
Animal welfare
Smith authored an early book supportive of
animal welfare. It was first published in an anthology of prose and verse,
The Melange, in 1834. It was published separately as
The Elysium of Animals: A Dream in 1836.
The Monthly Review for 1836 commented:
Selected publications
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The Melange (1834)
-
The Elysium of Animals: A Dream (1836)
Bibliography
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Perkin, Michael, 'Egerton Smith and the Early Nineteenth Century Book Trade in Liverpool', in Robin Myers and Michael Harris (eds.) Spreading the Word: the Distribution Networks of Print, 1550-1850 (Winchester, 1990), 151-64
