Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Bronte Studies

William Smith Williams: Charlotte Brontë’s First Devotee

Below is the link to an article I wrote for Bronte Studies. I have since published a book, Charlotte Bronte’s Devotee, telling the whole of what I discovered about this fascinating man. The article is but the bare bones. The book is available to buy

The article explores some of what is known of William Smith Williams, the reader at Smith, Elder and Company, who discovered and mentored Charlotte Brontë. It traces his childhood, education and early career. His interest in art was perhaps as great as that in literature and the article explores a number of his writings on the subject. His correspondence with Charlotte Brontë is well known; less familiar is his relationship with John Ruskin on which this article seeks to shed some light. It will show that William Smith Williams was very much a Renaissance man who attracted both friendship and respect from many of the nineteenth century’s leading writers, artists and thinkers.

A preface to the article explains my interest:

Philip Hamlyn Williams’s interest in William Smith William stems from his irritation that William Smith Williams seemed to be dismissed by many Brontë biographers. He holds an MA in Professional Writing and in 2008, as a mature student, was awarded a First Class Degree in Humanities from the University of Exeter. He, previously, had pursued careers in professional services, principally as a partner in accountants Price Waterhouse and the not-for-profit sector. He is the author of two books on the how the British army was supplied in the two World Wars: War on Wheels and Ordnance, both published by The History Press, Gloucester, England.

Correspondence to: Philip Hamlyn Williams. Email: philhwilliams@gmail.com. Website:  www.philwilliamswriter.co.uk.

The article, published by Taylor & Francis in Bronte on 18 March 2019, is available online:

The Kindle edition of the book is available by following this link 

William Smith Williams and his love of art

Most people know William Smith Williams as the man who discovered and mentored Charlotte Bronte. His passion for art was at least as strong as that for literature. He wrote on art for the Athenaeum, Spectator and Examiner; he presented a masterly paper On Lithography to the Society of Arts; he wrote a precursor to the Pre-Raphaelites in John Bull and on the place of art in design for The Builder. He was a friend of John Ruskin; he had hands involvement in publishing his later works; he edited the Selections of the Writings of John Ruskin published by Smith, Elder in 1861.

His obituary in the Publishers Circular said of his later years that:

He became so absorbed [in assessing the work of authors] that he ceased to write himself, and became more warmly friendly with many writers whose names are known to all the world and whose friendship and esteem he never lost. Amongst these may be named Leigh and Thornton Hunt, WM Thackeray, the Miss Brontës, John Ruskin, Miss Kavanagh, Mrs Parr (Holme Lee), Egerton Webbe, George Henry Lewes and many others including a great number of painters.

Charlotte Bronte clearly valued William's views on art as she wrote:

I had just read your article in the John Bull; it very clearly and fully explains the cause of the difference obvious between ancient and modern paintings. I wish you had been with us when we went over the Exhibition and the National Gallery; a little explanation from a judge of art would doubtless have enabled us to understand better what we saw; perhaps one day, we may have this pleasure.

As I said his paper On Lithography is masterful and has some wonderful illustrations.

With thanks to the RSA

I write more in my forthcoming article in Bronte Studies and, of course, in the draft of my biography of this true Renaissance man

William Smith Williams - for Bronte Studies

The title of this post is my current working title for my biography of William Smith Williams, with the strap line: Friend and mentor to Charlotte Brontë and a host of Victorian writers and artists

The name, William Smith Williams, will strike a chord with readers of Bronte biographies. He was the reader at Smith Elder & Co who first spotted Charlotte’s genius. He then nurtured her talent, as is evident from the one hundred or so letters she wrote to him in the course of her short career.

But who was he? Whence had he come and whither did he go? A passage from a letter his brother in law, Robert Hill, wrote on his death urges exploration: ‘There were complementary notices of his death in nearly all the papers. Nobody could have been more universally beloved or respected than he was.’

I read the obituaries and they were indeed full of praise and affection for this quiet man. The Athenaeum wrote: ‘His literally taste was excellent, and he had great powers of discernment. His judgement and his opinion regarding the works was very highly valued, more especially by young authors.’ One sentence, in the Publishers Circular, in particular caught my attention: ‘The truth is that Mr Williams’ previous education had fitted him to be a judge of good work, and he was singularly fair and unbiased.’ I had to discover what this ‘previous education’ may have been.

I was helped in my search by the genealogical work carried out by Mr Norman Penty and written up in his booklet, The Discovery of Charlotte Brontë William Smith Williams 1800-1875 – a Genealogical Quest. In 2006 Mr Penty kindly contacted me and told me of the family tree that he had painstakingly researched. He contacted me because my name appears in the tree as the great grand son of WSW’s brother. The other huge source of help was from the late Margaret Smith’s edition of the letters of Charlotte Brontë. I visited the Brontë archive at Haworth, the Ruskin archive at Lancaster and the Smith Elder archive in Edinburgh, discovering in each place true gems. I have had access to some wonderful family letters.

My researches are bearing fruit and appear in an article for Bronte Studies published in April 2019 and is now part of a biography which has been published  - just follow this link. 

William’s Family

William Smith Williams was born in 1800 and was baptised the following year. His brother, Richard, had been born in the final year of the eighteenth century. Their parents, Richard and Mary, had married at St Dunstan, Stepney in 1791. Richard was in business as a wax and tallow chandler at 408 The Strand. The family had come from Wheatley near Oxford where they were fellmongers, quite possibly providing skins for Oxford Colleges.

Tragedy struck, with the brothers losing their parents in their teenage years. They emerge back onto the record in 1817 for William as be becomes apprenticed to publishers, Taylor & Hessey. Richard appears on the baptism register of his daughter, Mary Eliza, in 1819 when he is described as a surgeon's instrument maker. He went on to manage Weiss & Co, Surgical Instrument Makers, at 62 The Strand until retirement. Richard had married also a Mary and they had two further children, William and my grandfather Alfred Hamlyn Williams.

William Smith Williams married Margaret Hill in 1826 and they went on to have four sons: Frank, Robert, Richard and Thornton and four daughters: Ellen, Fanny, Louisa and Anna. They were each talented in their own way. I have written what is known of them in my biography of William Smith Williams.

Richard Williams

There was a family 'myth' that we were related to Oliver Cromwell, whose great-grandfather, Richard, had been born Williams but later changed his name to that of his maternal uncle, Thomas Cromwell.

The Society of Arts 22 December 1847

On 22 December 1847 at the House of the Society of Arts at 8 John Adam Street, WSW gave his paper On Lithography. It was very well received.

I imagine the conversation. “Is this the man who has published Currer Bell’s Jane Eyre?” Indeed it was he and the firm he worked for, Smith, Elder&Co.

Forty years earlier he had lived with father, mother and brother (my great grandfather) at 408 The Strand. WSW’s brother managed the surgical instruments business of Weiss & Co at 62 The Strand which backs on to the RSA. Would Richard Williams have been there to hear his brother’s paper on 22 December 1847?

So I can imagine WSW going up the stairs of the RSA to the Great Room to the audience awaiting his paper, only there wouldn’t be the portrait or the list of Society Presidents for it wasn’t awarded its Royal Charter until 1848.

Charlotte Bronte's Devotee? - a first draft

I mark 31 August 2018 as the day I sent off a first draft of my biography of William Smith Williams.

It has been a labour of love, a quest for the man behind Charlotte Brontë’s description of him: 'a faded Tom Dixon.' (He could hardly have been less so).


I was helped in my search by the genealogical work carried out by Mr Norman Penty and written up in his booklet, The Discovery of Charlotte Brontë William Smith Williams 1800-1875 – a Genealogical Quest. In 2006 Mr Penty contacted me and told me of the family tree that he had painstakingly researched. He contacted me because my name appears in the tree as the great grand son of WSW’s brother. The other huge source of help was from the late Margaret Smith’s edition of the letters of Charlotte Brontë. I visited the Brontë archive at Haworth, the Ruskin archive at Lancaster and the Smith Elder archive in Edinburgh, discovering in each place true gems. I researched extensively on line and in libraries. WSW's descendants in New Zealand and Australia provided a much need family perspective.

I found a true nineteenth century Renaissance man as at home with art as with literature, and with politics as with science. The question mark in the suggested title is deliberate. He is known as Charlotte Brontë’s mentor, a task he carried out with devotion. However, whilst she may have been the most prominent, she was very far from the only writer to whom WSW devoted his energies and very particular skills. 

The draft is divided into twelve chapters:

1 Childhood
2 Apprenticeship
3 The Hullmandel Years
4 The House of Smith, Elder & Co
5 The Bronte Years – Jane Eyre
6 The Bronte Years – Friendship
7 The Bronte Years – Art and Tragedy
8 The Bronte Years – Shirley, The Cornhill Parcels and Education
9 The Bronte Years – Villette, A Cooling Relationship
10 The Cornhill and Other Authors
11 The Ruskin Years

12 Home Life and Legacy

I now begin my search for a suitable publisher.

William and Kensal Green Cemetery

William Smith Williams was buried in the magnificent Kensal Green Cemetery. His obituary in the Publishers Circular told of him having many friends, some of whom stood round his grave at his burial on 20 September 1875.

The obituary in the Athenaeum, for which he wrote for many years, said that 'literary taste was excellent and he had great powers of discernment. His judgement and opinion regarding works was very highly valued, especially among young authors. His kind smile and gentle manner charmed all those who had the pleasure of knowing him'.

His grave plot was purchased in 1864 by his daughter in law Emily Williams, nee Epps, a celebrated artist. It may be been her with his many children who survived him who paid for the memorial, the lettering on which may be by AC Gill.

Members of the London and South East Branch of the Bronte Society realised that the stone was being eroded and the inscription would soon no longer be visible and so they commissioned a plaque to be placed beside it. They were kind enough to ask me, as his great great nephew, to unveil it which I did on 20 January 2018.

It is a fitting memorial to an unassuming but significant man of literature.

It would be interesting to know what he would have thought of it, for in 1843 he wrote a piece for the Athenaeum on memorials, which included this:

This is not a poetical age; fitting emblems are few, and not very intelligible: a flower snapped from the stork is almost the only graceful and expressive emblem of youth and innocence. In the Kensal Green Cemetery is a tomb with a dead lamb sculpted on it, which, besides looking unsightly, awakens ideas of the shambles; and we remember to have seen a dead bird which at once carries you to the poulterer’s. The broken column is not so bad but these, and all similar emblems, are anything but hopeful. The Greeks symbolised the soul by a butterfly; we, in this material age, typify the soul in a bodily form. If it will wish to express the changes the mortal part of us undergoes after death, our scientific notions might suggest a retort and receiver. Not being a poetical people, we are, therefore, incompetent either to invent or understand symbols, and it would best to avoid them altogether.


William Smith Williams was buried in the same grave as his son Robert. The remains of his daughter Ellen and his wife would join his in 1882 and 1888. The adjacent grave would contain the remains of his son in law, Lowes Dickinson, and his daughter Fanny Emily. His legacy would last longer than than of many of those in his rather remarkable circle.