Samuel Smith
Samuel Smith was born in Stoneleigh, the sixth child of nine of John Smith, a miller, and his wife Ann Tabitha nee Job. He was born in early 1862 and baptised on 27 April. In 1871 the family lived at 2, Coventry Road.
Samuel was obviously a born teacher: he is first noted as Stipendiary Monitor at Stoneleigh at the age of 13, in January 1875. He was made Pupil Teacher in January 1877, when his future wife Amy Flint was also appointed as Paid Monitor. The school had only a temporary Head at that time and so the work of the Staff would be considerable. At Christmas 1880 Samuel left to begin working as Master of Butler's Marston School and his younger brother Walter began to study for his teacher's examinations at Stoneleigh. The school log-book records
December 17th: Samuel Smith's engagement terminates today. A more honourable, upright, and trustworthy Pupil-Teacher, has never quitted the walls of his Apprenticeship than Samuel Smith; and in parting from him I feel that I have lost a real help.
He and Amy Flint, the daughter of the village blacksmith Edwin Flint, married on 15 August 1881 and four children were born whilst they lived at Butler's Marston. He returned as Head of Stoneleigh School on 1 April 1889, and female twins were born around that time as they were both baptised at Stoneleigh on 26 May 1889. Another daughter was to follow, in late 1890. Intimations of Samuel's poor health soon emerged: in October 1889 the logbook noted that he was out of school all week suffering from "acute rheumatism".
By 1891, then, the couple had seven children, including a set of twins. Two of the children, sadly, were recorded in later censuses as deaf and dumb - the eldest girl, Amy Elizabeth, and one of the twins, Edith.
In September of that year Samuel's brother Walter was engaged to take temporary charge of the school as Samuel had had a severe attack of rheumatic fever during the holidays, and was too ill to resume work. Later that month he spent some time at the Kenilworth Convalescent Home.
Sadly however the school logbook records "Mr Samuel Smith died suddenly on June 1st 1892." He was just 30 years old and left a wife and seven children under the age of ten. He was buried on 4 June.
[NB By 1910 Amy had gone to live and work as a teacher in Kineton, where she died in 1925. Her sister Alice stayed in Stoneleigh looking after their father Edwin Flint: her husband
Henry Hulbert (
E 5. 4) had died by drowning in 1903 and her son Charles died in an industrial accident in 1919.
Samuel's mother Ann Tabitha Smith was resident in the almshouses from 1901. She and her husband John are both buried at Stoneleigh; Samuel's brother Walter did not remain in the teaching profession, but became a surveyor of highways, a collector of taxes, and a rural postman!]