John Lucie-Smith
British judge
About John Lucie-Smith
Lived 1825 – 1883 (aged 57–58).
Sir John Lucie-Smith III, (1825 – 9 July 1883) was a British Guyanese lawyer who served as Chief Justice of Jamaica.
Early life He was born in 1825 in Demerara , British Guiana. He was the son of lawyer John Lucie-Smith Jr., (1795–1844) and Martha Bean (1805–1880). Among his siblings were sister, Martha Agnes Jean Lucie-Smith (who married George Smith Bascom), and brother, Sir William Frederick Haynes-Smith, who variously served as Attorney General of British Guiana, Governor of Antigua and Barbuda and the Bahamas, and High Commissioner of Cyprus. His father lived in Georgetown and had a plantation in Vreed en Hoop.
His paternal grandparents were John Lucie-Smith Sr. and Anna Agnes ( McLaurin) Lucie-Smith. His maternal grandparents were Charles Bean of Richmond, Surrey, and Magdalena Susanna van der Linde.
Career Lucie-Smith trained for the law at the Middle Temple in London, where he was called to the bar in 1849. He returned to practise as a lawyer in British Guiana and was appointed Solicitor-General of the country in 1852. In 1855, he was appointed Attorney-General of British Guiana, serving until 1859.
Appointed Chief Justice of Jamaica in 1869 he was awarded CMG in the 1869 Birthday Honours and knighted in 1870.
Personal life On 1 March 1851 he married Marie van Waterschoodt (1836–1915), the eldest daughter of Jean B. van Waterschoodt. Together, they were the parents of:
John Barkley Lucie-Smith (1852–1915), the Postmaster General of Jamaica from 1905 to 1915; he married Catherine Peynado Burke, the granddaughter of Samuel Constantine Burke, in 1884. Sir Alfred Van Waterschoodt Lucie-Smith (1854–1947), also a colonial judge; he married Rose Alice Aves, seventh daughter of Edward Leopold Aves in 1885. After her death, he married Mary Meta Ruth Palmer Ross, a daughter of Sir David Palmer Ross, in 1901.
He died at Chipton, in West Worthing, Sussex on 9 July 1883.
Descendants Through his son Alfred, he was a grandfather of John Lucie-Smith, who also served as a judge and was Chief Justice of Sierra Leone.
Through his son John, he was a grandfather of Euan Lucie-Smith, who was one of the first mixed-heritage infantry officers in a regular British Army regiment, and the first killed in World War I.
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Important facts
People in John Lucie-Smith's life
Named in this biography and alive at the same time
Contemporaries
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Frequently asked questions
Who was John Lucie-Smith?
British judge
When was John Lucie-Smith born?
John Lucie-Smith was born in 1825.
When did John Lucie-Smith die?
John Lucie-Smith died in 1883.
Sources & further reading
Cite this page
APA: Biography.guide. (2026). John Lucie-Smith. https://biography.guide/john-lucie-smith/
MLA: "John Lucie-Smith." Biography.guide, https://biography.guide/john-lucie-smith/.
Chicago: "John Lucie-Smith." Biography.guide. https://biography.guide/john-lucie-smith/.
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