Lieutenant Campbell Lindsay Smith was born on 27 March 1879 in Kelly Castle, Arbirlot, Forfarshire, Scotland. (Forfarshire became Angus in 1928). He was the sixth of the eight children of Major General John Smith (1824-1889) and his second wife Edith Helen Smith née Campbell (1848-1917). His father, who had served in the Bengal Army, had two children by his first wife Agnes Sarah Smith née Ferrier (1833-1855).
In the 1881 census he is shown as living at Kelly Castle, with his parents, five siblings: Edith Maud Lindsay Smith (1872-1955), John Lindsay Smith (1874-1944), William Frank Lindsay Smith (1877-1917), Lilias Margaret Lindsay Smith (1878-1924) and Louisa Grace Lindsay Smith (1880-1951), together with five female domestic servants.
The 1891 census shows him as a scholar living at 20 Rubislaw Terrace, Aberdeen, Scotland, with his widowed mother, his half-sister Mary Harriet Gilles Smith (1852-1919), six siblings: Maud, John, William, Lilias, Louisa and Arthur Curzon Lindsay Smith (1888-1944), together with a nurse, a cook and a table-maid.
He was a Royal Academy Schools Student from 25 January 1898 to January 1903 and there are many examples of his work. In the 1901 census he was shown as an artist residing at 8 Kensington Studios, Kelso Place, Queens Gate, Kensington. The 1911 census informs that he was listed as an artist (painter) boarding at the home of Thomas and Annie Coles, 61 Oakley Street, Chelsea.
He was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the 11th Battalion, Gordon Highlanders and on 19 June 1915 he married Hannah Frances Dalzell Piper in Alresford, Hampshire. He was attached the 8th Battalion, Gordon Highlanders, when he was killed in action, aged 36 years, on 10 November 1915. The Scotsman newspaper of 22 December 1915 carried an article about him that read: 'whilst on patrol duty, for which he volunteered with a sergeant and a private of his regiment on the night of 10 November 1915, he fell into a shell hole where some Germans were hiding. They fired and he was wounded and taken prisoner. The soldiers accompanying him went for assistance. He died that night and was buried in the cemetery at Kortevilde'.
Probate records give his address as 259 Union Street, Aberdeen, and when confirmation of his will dated 8 October 1915 was granted on 23 December 1916 to his advocate and executor Francis James Cochran his estate was valued at £463-11s-11d. By 8 March 1917 his executor had received his £75-10s-9d army effects.
On 21 March 1921 his body was exhumed from the German Military Cemetery and reburied in Plot 66, Row F, Grave 1, in the Tyne Cot Cemetery, Vijfwegestraat, Zonnebeke, Belgium. He was posthumously awarded the 1914-1915 Star, the British War Medal 1914-1918 and the Victory Medal and these were sent on 8 March 1922 to his remarried widow, Mrs H. F. D. Dodgson at Woodbury Grange, Tunbridge Wells, Kent. He is also commemorated on a memorial stone in the churchyard of the Cathedral Church of St Machar, The Chanonry, Aberdeen, AB24 1RQ.
Credit for this entry to: Andrew Behan.
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