William Collard Smith

Lieutenant-Colonel Hon. William Collard Smith (19 July 1830 – 20 October 1894) was a politician in colonial Victoria (Australia), a member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly, and a Minister of Education from 1880 to 1881.

Smith was youngest son of William Smith, manager of a large cotton factory at Bollington, in Cheshire, England, where he was born. He emigrated to Victoria in 1852, and ultimately settled at Ballarat, of which he was mayor in 1874–75 and 1887–88. Identifying himself with the mining interest, he began to acquire that ascendency in the local politics of the goldfields' city, which he for many years maintained. for Ballarat West, in conjunction with the ex-Premier of Victoria, Duncan Gillies, and after a brief retirement stood again in 1871, when he was returned, and represented the constituency without intermission till April 1892, when he was defeated. Smith was again elected for Ballarat West, but died soon afterward.