built by Woods of Berkhamsted and therefore, claim it as part of his estate. Smith brought out a gang of navvies on a specially chartered train to roll up the fence and leave it within sight of Brownlow's house, demonstrating his will to protect Berkhamsted Common for the people of Berkhamsted. Personal life Smith lived at his house Tresco Abbey and started what would become the Tresco Abbey Gardens. Smith never married, but had illegitimate children by many women, including Mary Pender, a local woman whom with he had at least three children, two of which, Georgina and Laurence, Smith continued to support "in great comfort". He had a close relationship and a lifelong correspondence with Lady Sophia Tower, a married woman (and only daughter of the 1st Earl Brownlow) who often visited him at Tresco. The estate was inherited by his nephew Thomas Smith-Dorrien-Smith, and his descendants retain the lease of Tresco to the present day. Death Smith died of gangrene of the lungs at the Duke of Cornwall Hotel, Plymouth on 31 July 1872. Four days before he died he asked to be buried in St Buryan's Church, St Buryan, Cornwall, instead of in the churchyard of St Mary's Old Church, on Duchy land, because the Duchy was “greedy and grabbing”. A tall stone monument was erected in the churchyard of St Mary's Old Church, St Mary's, Isles of Scilly to recognise Smith's involvement with the Islands, as well as a monument on Tresco. References Footnotes References External links 1804 births 1872 deaths British philanthropists Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Truro UK MPs 1857–1859 UK MPs 1859–1865 People from Berkhamsted People from the Isles of Scilly Liberal Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Augustus Presidents of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall British Freemasons Utilitarians Lord Proprietors of the Isles of Scilly Leaseholders of Tresco