Hannah Wood
ODNB; AO (Foster)
Born in the parish of All Hallows Barking, London, Thomas Smith graduated BA from Queen's College, Oxford in 1661 and proceeded MA in 1663. He was appointed master of Magdalen College School in 1663, marking the beginning of an illustrious academic career. A keen orientalist with a particular interest in the Levant and Greek Church, Smith served as Hebrew lecturer at Magdalen and as chaplain to the English ambassador, Sir Daniel Harvey, in Constantinople from 1668-71. He proceeded BD in 1674 and DD in 1683, publishing several works in the interim years. From 1678 to 1679 he worked as chaplain to Sir Joseph Williamson, secretary of state; he returned to Oxford in 1682 to take up the position of vice-president of Magdalen, where he clashed with Catholic fellows and was briefly deprived of his own fellowship. After he refused to take oaths to William and Mary, Smith was stripped of his fellowship permanently in 1692. Shortly thereafter, through his friendship with Sir John Cotton, Smith became the unofficial librarian of the Cotton library, a position which he lost when the library was transferred to the state. He directed his focus to his own intellectual output in his final years, publishing several historical and biographical works. Smith died on 11 May 1710 and was buried in St. Anne's, Soho, leaving his books and papers to his close friend Thomas Hearne. Upon Hearne's death in 1735 16 of Smith's manuscripts were given to the Bodleian; in 1755 the Bodleian received the remainder of the manuscripts among Hearne's personal collection, as part of the bequest of Richard Rawlinson.