Sir Drummond Smith

Sir Drummond Smith of Suttons, Stapleford Tawney, Essex and two of his gamekeepers, Francis Henry Barton and John Woodrow, were summoned at Ongar yesterday for setting a pole trap on an estate at Stanford Rivers. The case against Sir Drummond was dismissed; Woodrow was fined £2 for fixing the trap, and Barton was fined £1 for permitting the trap to be fixed.

The Chairman (Mr H.J. Meyer) hoped that Sir Drummond, in common with other persons who preserved game, would take steps to ensure that these traps were not employed in future. An order was made for the trap to be forfeited.

Mr. O.S. Jenkins, prosecuting for Our Dumb Friends’ League, said that the two investigators of the League saw in a pheasantry in a wood on Sir Drummond’s estate a pole on which was set a trap. The keepers said, “We must protect our birds.” Sir Drummond “treated the matter with hilarity.”

Mr Daniel Ryan, one of the investigators, stated that Sir Drummond said that it was very stupid of the league to prosecute in such cases.

Asked by Mr. S. Wortley, defending, what right he had to trespass on the estate, Mr Ryan said that he required no authority, and quoted a section of the Wild Birds Protection Act, 1896. He added that in any case permission would not be given. He did not know that Sir Drummond subscribed to the funds of the league.

Sir Drummond, in evidence, denied that the trap was set with hi knowledge. He did not know, he said, that they were illegal; otherwise he would have given instructions for them not to be used. He was angry with the league for sending their “detectives sneaking about” his coverts, and suggested that they would be more usefully employed looking after sick animals.

For the defence it was submitted that Woodrow set the trap because pheasants had been killed by owls.

The Smith, later Hamilton-Spencer-Smith, later Spencer-Smith Baronetcy, of Tring Park, in Hertfordshire.

The baronetcy was created on 11 June 1804 for Drummond Smith, with remainder to the male heirs of his niece Augusta (daughter of his eldest brother Joshua Smith, of Stoke Park, Wiltshire), the wife of Charles Smith, MP, of Suttons, Essex. Drummond was born in 1740 and died 22 November, 1816. He married Elizabeth Moncton.

Sir Charles Joshua Smith, the 2nd Baronet was the grand-nephew of Drummond. He was on the born 31st May 1800. He married twice, firstly Belinda Colebrooke who died in 1825) and secondly Mary Gosling (died 3rd July 1842), with whom he had three children, Charles Cunliffe, Mary Charlotte and Augusta Elizabeth.

Sir Charles died on the 14th January, 1831.

Sir Charles Cunliffe Smith, the 3rd Baronet was born on the 15th September, 1827. He married in 1855 Agnes Fredrica, the youngest daughter of Capel Cure of Blake Hall, Bobbingworth, near Ongar.

Sir Charles died on the 31st July 1905.

Sir Charles Cunliffe Smith

They had two sons, Drummond and Reginald.

Sir Drummond Cunliffe Smith, the 4th Baronet who was born on the 23rd February 1861. He remained a bachelor all his life and died on the 8th May 1947.

He was succeeded by his kinsman, Drummond Cospatric Hamilton-Spencer-Smith, OBE.
The fifth Baronet (whose father Reverend Spencer Compton Hamilton-Spencer-Smith had assumed the additional surnames of Hamilton and Spencer in 1872, having married Mary, daughter of Admiral Cospatric Baillie-Hamilton. Drummond was born on the 4th November 1876 and died 18th December 1955.

He was succeeded by his son, Thomas Cospatric Hamilton-Spencer-Smith, who was born 8 December 1917, who became the 6th Baronet. During World War II he served as a Captain in the Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry. He died 14th October 1959.
On the death of Sir Thomas, Suttons manor was sold.
He was succeeded by Sir John Hamilton Spencer-Smith, who is the current Baronet, and who was born on the 18th March 1947.