# Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Smith, Vincent Arthur

​SMITH, VINCENT ARTHUR (1848–1920), Indian historian and antiquary, was born in Dublin 3 June 1848, the fifth of the thirteen children of the Irish antiquary, Aquilla Smith [q.v.]. His mother's maiden name was Esther Faucett, and his parents were first cousins. After a distinguished career at Trinity College, Dublin, he entered the Indian civil service in 1871, and was posted to the North-West Provinces and Oudh, as they were then styled. He retired in 1900, having held an exceptionally wide variety of appointments within the Provinces, culminating in the chief secretaryship and the commissionership of a division.
Smith inherited his father's tastes, and his work as a settlement officer early directed his attention to the antiquities in which the Ganges valley is exceptionally rich; among his earliest published works were articles on the coinage of the Gupta dynasty (1889, 1893) and on Graeco-Roman influence on the civilization of ancient India (1889). An original investigator of no mean merit, his studies gradually led him to see the need for co-ordinating the detailed results obtained by various independent scholars; and to this object he devoted himself, retiring from the service while it was still open to him to serve for several years. His best work, the Early History of India, was published in 1904; embodying the main results of the work on India done during the previous century, not only by the Royal Asiatic Society but also by a host of continental scholars, it immediately became authoritative, and in its latest (revised) edition (1924) will long remain so. Other works of importance in the same field were a History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon (1911), a Life of Asoka (1901), a Life of Akbar (1917), and the Oxford History of India (1918). Smith wrote with restraint, due in part to his overwhelming sense of the need for sobriety and caution in a field where so much necessarily remains obscure. His Early History thus lacks the picturesque atmosphere with which less cautious writers have invested the period; while the Oxford History suffers from extreme compression. But the value of his work is universally recognized by scholars, even by those most prone to the extravagances from which he was naturally averse. In addition to studies in his own subject he published a criticism of the Montagu-Chelmsford proposals for Indian reform (1919). He had been too long absent from India, and his taste for antiquarian illustrations was too great, for his criticisms to carry much weight, especially as his constructive proposals were few and small; but he made a vigorous protest against the spirit of make-believe which was too prevalent at that time in Indian politics.
Smith's life after his retirement, at Cheltenham (1900–1910) and at Oxford (1910–1920), was uneventful; though he suffered a disappointment in not being elected to the readership in Indian history at Oxford after he had acted as deputy reader. On the other hand his C.I.E. (1919), as a recognition of pure scholarship, was something outside the beaten track of official decorations. For many years his vigour and common sense were of the greatest service to the Indian Institute at Oxford and to the Royal Asiatic Society. The latter awarded him its gold medal in 1918. Save for his attack on the Montagu-Chelmsford proposals, and an occasional protest against slipshod research or muddled thinking, his published works give little indication of his private character, which was thoroughly Irish—genial, hospitable, and outspoken. He married in 1871 Mary Elizabeth, daughter of William Clifford Tute, of Sligo, who, with three sons and a daughter, survived him. He died at Oxford 6 February 1920.
[The Times, 7 February 1920; Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1920 (notice by F. E. P(argiter) with full bibliography); Sister Nivedita (Margaret E. Noble), Footfalls of Indian History, 1915; private information.]
S. V. FG.