Ellen Smyly

Who was Ellen Smyly?

Ellen Smyly was an Irish charity worker.

She was born on 14 November 1815, the daughter of Matthew Franks. She became a prominent philanthropist, fund-raising and setting up homes and schools for the poor. The Smyly Homes and subsequent Smyly Trust are named after her and her family.

At the age of 19 she married the Dublin surgeon Josiah Smyly F.R.C.S.I.. Touched by the poverty and destitution in the city she began her charity work.

In 1852 she set up her first bible school in Dublin, and by the 1870s had set up a number of schools and residential homes. Mrs Smyly or her daughters sat on the boards of most of these institutions. With the assistance of Rev. Alexander Dallas she set up a school in a loft in Townsend St., and children of this home received schooling and food from his Irish Church Mission. A member of the Church of Ireland, her humanitarian mission was influenced by her religious beliefs.

She set up a residential home for boys and one for girls, and then 1859 the Birds Nest in Dun Laoghaire for infants, her homes and organisation known as The Smyly Mission Homes and Ragged Schools of Dublin cared for over 1000 children at this time.