Francis Smith

Sir Francis Villeneuve Smith (13 February 1819 – 17 January 1909) was an Australian lawyer, judge and politician, who served as the fourth Premier of Tasmania from 12 May 1857 until 1 November 1860.

Early life: West Indies Smith was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. His mother, Marie Josephine Villeneuve (? – 4 December 1893), was of African descent but nothing more is known about her parents. Smith would acknowledge his mother's ancestry by adopting her surname in 1884.

While his mother was a resident of Port-au-Prince, his father was recorded as ‘Sir (sic) Francis Smith, foreign merchant in this town’. He ‘declared being the natural father of the child…’ and his common-law wife Amelia Brodbelt (? – May 1817). Described as a ‘mulatto’, in March 1765 Amelia Brodbelt had been freed from enslavement by Frances Brodbelt of Nevis. Frances was the unmarried sister of the Nevis planter James Brodbelt who was Amelia Brodbelt’s father. Throughout her life, Amelia was known as a ‘free coloured woman’.

Early life: to Tasmania via England By 1821 Francis Smith senior and his family were living at 26 Brunswick Place, Shoreditch, London. Francis was baptised on 24 September 1821 in the local church, St Leonard's. Before May 1824 the family moved to Lindfield, Sussex, where his father bought a farm which he sold prior to leaving for Australia.

The family arrived in Port Jackson, Sydney on 15 November 1828. After a brief stay in Sydney and then Hobart and in later life was a Bencher of his Inn from 1890 to 1898.

After returning to Tasmania, he was admitted to the Tasmanian Bar in October 1844. He became 'a barrister of some standing 'whose talent and legal knowledge have obtained for him a very large amount of practice'. She was born about 1832 in Foxford, County Mayo, Ireland

o Kate Villeneuve Smith (c 1856 Tasmania - ?)

o Margaret Villeneuve Smith (c 1861 Tasmania - ?)