Erasmus Smith

Who is Erasmus Smith?

Erasmus Smith was an English merchant, landowner and philanthropist in the field of education who lived during a period of political and religious turbulence.

Smith's family owned manors in Leicestershire and held Protestant beliefs. He become a merchant, a supplier of foodstuffs to the armies of the Puritan Oliver Cromwell — especially during Cromwell's suppression of rebellion in Ireland — and an alderman of the City of London. He was a beneficiary of legislation designed to provide finance for those military campaigns of the 1640s and 1650s, from which he gained extensive landholdings in Ireland both as a return for monies given in support and by speculation in the land options promised to others who had given such support.

Subsequently, during the remainder of Cromwell's rule and then the succession of Charles II, Smith manoeuvred to protect his land gains and to further his general religious sympathies. He achieved this in part by creating an eponymous Trust whereby some of his Irish property was used for the purpose of financing the education of children and provided scholarships for the most promising of those to continue their studies at Trinity College, Dublin.