William Kelly Smith arrived in Jamaica in the early 1820s as a very young child; he may have been one of those liberated from slave-trading ships by the British Navy. From as early as 1823 he was attending the Sunday School of the Church of Scotland in Kingston. With little opportunity for education, he made the best use of his own gifts to become a teacher and a catechist, in which capacities he served for many years.
From 1859 to 1865 he was connected with the Jamaica Watchman newspaper, owned at first by George William Gordon, as reporter and then editor. The paper was closed by the authorities in October 1865 for the use of ‘seditious language’. In 1865 he was one of the spokesmen for the Black population in Kingston. He was secretary at a big political meeting in May 1865 when Samuel Clarke, Thomas Harry and others spoke, and later in the year, after the events in Morant Bay, he was arrested with several associates who were considered supporters of the ‘rebels’. They were taken to Morant Bay and held there, being witnesses to the floggings and hangings that were carried out. Although he was later released and found not guilty of conspiracy, his experiences in 1865 had a lasting effect on him, including prolonged illness and greatly straightened circumstances. His family, consisting of his mother, wife, three daughters and a son also suffered greatly from his misfortunes. In 1871 friends helped him to go to London to try to get compensation from the Government and also to seek a government post supervising the establishment of schools, especially in St Thomas. These efforts produced no results, and it is not clear how he and his family survived.
He remained something of a public figure for the remaining three decades of his life. He spoke for Black Jamaicans in a memorial to the Royal Commission in 1882, which was signed by him and five other Black Jamaicans. Their memorial urged that Crown Colony Government should continue, as they did not believe that a return to representative government would benefit the Black masses. They wanted the advances achieved since 1865, especially in education, to be sustained and extended. Kelly Smith stood for the Kingston seat in the Legislative Council in the first elections under the new constitution in 1884, but he had no success with that attempt, or his later attempts to be elected to the Kingston City Council. During the 1880s he gave a number of public lectures, and in the 1890s he was noted as regularly attending the meetings of the Legislative Council, and most public events of any importance.
He was a devoted member of the Kingston Parish Church; he considered that it was Black Jamaicans who had supported the Anglican Church after its disestablishment in 1870, and that it was they who had maintained and beautified the churches as acceptable places of worship.
Although Robert Love, in his obituary in the Jamaica Advocate in 1901, claimed that Smith’s intellect was ‘clear and strong to the last’, others clearly felt that his mind had been affected by his sufferings in 1865, and he was not taken very seriously. However, as the Gleaner’s obituary said - ‘He will be much missed from his place now’: he had been a living reminder to a later generation of the suffering of 1865.
From 1859 to 1865 he was connected with the Jamaica Watchman newspaper, owned at first by George William Gordon, as reporter and then editor. The paper was closed by the authorities in October 1865 for the use of ‘seditious language’. In 1865 he was one of the spokesmen for the Black population in Kingston. He was secretary at a big political meeting in May 1865 when Samuel Clarke, Thomas Harry and others spoke, and later in the year, after the events in Morant Bay, he was arrested with several associates who were considered supporters of the ‘rebels’. They were taken to Morant Bay and held there, being witnesses to the floggings and hangings that were carried out. Although he was later released and found not guilty of conspiracy, his experiences in 1865 had a lasting effect on him, including prolonged illness and greatly straightened circumstances. His family, consisting of his mother, wife, three daughters and a son also suffered greatly from his misfortunes. In 1871 friends helped him to go to London to try to get compensation from the Government and also to seek a government post supervising the establishment of schools, especially in St Thomas. These efforts produced no results, and it is not clear how he and his family survived.
He remained something of a public figure for the remaining three decades of his life. He spoke for Black Jamaicans in a memorial to the Royal Commission in 1882, which was signed by him and five other Black Jamaicans. Their memorial urged that Crown Colony Government should continue, as they did not believe that a return to representative government would benefit the Black masses. They wanted the advances achieved since 1865, especially in education, to be sustained and extended. Kelly Smith stood for the Kingston seat in the Legislative Council in the first elections under the new constitution in 1884, but he had no success with that attempt, or his later attempts to be elected to the Kingston City Council. During the 1880s he gave a number of public lectures, and in the 1890s he was noted as regularly attending the meetings of the Legislative Council, and most public events of any importance.
He was a devoted member of the Kingston Parish Church; he considered that it was Black Jamaicans who had supported the Anglican Church after its disestablishment in 1870, and that it was they who had maintained and beautified the churches as acceptable places of worship.
Although Robert Love, in his obituary in the Jamaica Advocate in 1901, claimed that Smith’s intellect was ‘clear and strong to the last’, others clearly felt that his mind had been affected by his sufferings in 1865, and he was not taken very seriously. However, as the Gleaner’s obituary said - ‘He will be much missed from his place now’: he had been a living reminder to a later generation of the suffering of 1865.