Francis Smythe (priest) explained

Francis Henry Dumville Smythe (1873–1966)^[1] was the Archdeacon of Lewes from 1929 to 1946.^[2]

Smythe was educated at Haileybury and Imperial Service College and Emmanuel College, Cambridge.^[3] He was ordained in 1898 and held curacies at South Petherton, Bunbury and Alfrick.^[4] held incumbencies in Horsted Keynes, Hove and Eastbourne; and died on 8 October 1966.^[5]

Smythe was a prolific collector of watercolours, and in the 1950s, he donated his collection to the Dunedin Public Art Gallery and New Zealand's National Art Gallery.^[6] The decision to make the donation to galleries in a county he never visited came after a long friendship with New Zealand art curator and gallery director Annette Pearse.^[6]

References

1. http://gravestonephotos.com/public/gravedetails.php?grave=453314&scrwidth=1372 Grave Stone Photos
2. ‘SMYTHE, Canon Francis Henry Dumville’, Who Was Who, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 1920–2016; online edn, Oxford University Press, 2014 ; online edn, April 2014 accessed 18 July 2016
3. Crockford's Clerical Directory, 1951-52, London, OUP, 1951
4. "Alumni Cantabrigienses: A Biographical List of All Known Students, Graduates and Holders of Office at the University of Cambridge, from the Earliest Times to 1900 " Part II. 1752–1900 Vol. v. Pace – Spyers, 1953 p581
5. Obituaries The Times (London, England), Monday, Oct 10, 1966; pg. 12; Issue 56758
6. Sippel . Annika . 2023-11-14 . A forgotten collector: Archdeacon Smythe and his collection of British watercolours in New Zealand . Tuhinga: Records of the Museum of New Zealand te Papa Tongarewa . 34 . 105–123 . 10.3897/TUHINGA.34.106803. free .