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Smith (or Smyth), William (1)

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Smith (or Smyth), William (1),

an English prelate, was a native of Lancashire, and born about the middle of the 15th century. He took his LL.B. degree at Oxford before 1492, when he was presented to the rectory of Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, by the countess of Richmond. Previous to this (Sept. 20, 1485) he was appointed clerk of the hanaper, and a few years after was promoted to the deanery of St. Stephen's, Westminster. In 1493 he was consecrated bishop of Lichfield and Coventry. He was shortly afterwards made president of the prince's council within the marches of Wales. There was a renewal of this commission in the seventeenth year of Henry VII, of which Smith was again lord-president. In 1495 he rebuilt the hospital of St. John, Lichfield, and gave a new body of statutes for the use of the society. Bishop Smith was translated to the see of Lincoln in November, 1495. In 1500 he was elected chancellor of Oxford, and in 1507-8 he concerted the plan of Brasenose College, along with his friend Sir Richard Sutton, and lived to see it completed. He died at Buckden, Jan. 2, 1513 (1514), and was interred in Lincoln Cathedral. See Churton, Lives of the Founders; Chalmers, Hist. of Oxford; Hook, Eccles. Biog.; Chalmers, Biog. Dict. s.v.