# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Smith, John (fl.1747)

​SMITH, JOHN (fl. 1747), author of ‘Chronicon Rusticum-Commerciale, or Memoirs of Wool,’ was born about 1700, and educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He was admitted pensioner of the college on 18 Dec. 1718, fellow-commoner on 31 Jan. 1721–22, and his name was taken off the books on 18 Dec. 1724 (Register of Trinity Hall). In 1725 he graduated LL.B. He entered the church, but devoted himself very largely to the study of the development of the woollen industry, especially in England. The result of these researches was published in 1747, in two octavo volumes, as ‘Chronicon Rusticum-Commerciale, or Memoirs of Wool.’ A second and more limited quarto edition was issued in 1757 (the library at Trinity College, Dublin, has a copy of the ‘second edition’ with the date 1765). Smith opposed the restrictions on the exportation of wool, and it was chiefly on this point that his conclusions were attacked by William Temple of Trowbridge, a zealous whig who wrote under the pseudonym of I. B., M.D. Smith replied to Temple's attack in a pamphlet ‘The Case of the English Farmer and his Landlord. In answer to Mr. Temple's (pretended) Refutation of one of the principal Arguments in “Memoirs of Wool.”’ This pamphlet was printed at Lincoln, and dedicated to the ‘nobility, gentry, and clergy’ of Lincolnshire. The dispute centres in the main round the question of the price of wool in England as compared with its value on the continent. Smith defends the statement in the ‘Memoirs’ (p. 516 of edit. of 1747) that ‘English wool in England is not sold to its intrinsic worth.’
In Lincolnshire Smith, according to his own statement, spent a great part of his life (‘Lincolnshire where I am most conversant,’ Review of the Manufacturer's Complaints against the Wool Grower, 1753, p. 7). He held, however, no living in Lincolnshire, and the date of his death is uncertain, unless he can be identified with the Rev. John Smith, who died in 1774, possessed of several livings in the south of England.
Smith's great work is a laborious compilation from many sources of facts bearing upon the history of the wool trade. He ​gives a digest, with copious extracts of the literature—especially the English literature—on the subject from the early seventeenth century onward. The book has always been regarded as a standard work, and is referred to in terms of high praise by Arthur Young in his ‘Annals of Agriculture’ (vi. 506): ‘The history of wool, in England, has been admirably written by Smith, with so much accuracy that scarcely any measure relative to that commodity can be stated which has not been fully explained and considered on the most liberal and enlightened principles; not deduced from vague theories, but from the clear page of ample experience.’ More recently m'Culloch has described it as ‘one of the most carefully compiled and valuable works’ ever published with regard to the history of any branch of trade (M'Culloch, Literature of Political Economy, 1845). In addition to this work, and the ‘Answer’ to Temple's ‘Refutation’ referred to above, Smith also wrote ‘A Review of the Manufacturer's Complaint against the Wool-grower,’ 1753, dealing with certain minutiæ of his favourite subject, such as the effect of pitch and tar marks on the wool of sheep.
E. C.-e.