'''Thomas Smethurst''' (c.1810<ref name="Census"></ref> - ?) was an apothecary, with a medical degree from a non-British university. Born in Budworth, Cheshire,<ref name="Census"></ref> by the 1850s he ran the Farnham Hydropathic Establishment in Surrey and in the 1851 census was living in Badshot with his wife Mary.<ref name="Census">{{Citeweb|url=https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/8860/records/1209905|title=1851 census}}</ref>
He is most notable for being convicted then pardoned of the murder by poisoning of Isabella Bankes, who had been living with Smethurst and his wife at 4 Rifle Terrace, Bayswater. He was sometimes known as "the Richmond Poisoner", as he and Bankes had lodged in Richmond (with Bankes going by "Mrs Smethurst") from 4 February until 3 May that year, when she died there.<ref>'The Suspected Poisoning at Richmond - Coroner's Inquest (This Day)', ''Sun (London)'', 13 May 1859, page 3</ref>
The coroner's inquest into the death indicted Smethurst for murder and his trial at the Central Criminal Court began on 7-8 July 1859,<ref name="OBO">{{Citeweb|url=https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/record/t18590704-683|title=Old Bailey Online entry}}</ref> with Serjeant-at-law John Humffreys Parry and George Markham Giffard as counsels for the defence, Sergeant-at-law William Ballantine, William Bodkin, Mr. Clark and Mr Merewether (a son of Henry Alworth Merewether) as counsels for the prosecution and Sir Frederick Pollock presiding<ref name="BMJ"></ref> - Smethurst pleaded Not Guilty.<ref name="BMJ"></ref> It was then interrupted by juror Thomas Instone<ref name="OBO"></ref> suddenly being taken ill<ref name="BMJ"></ref><ref name="OBO"></ref> but resumed from 15 to 18 August.<ref name="OBO2">{{Citeweb|url=https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/record/t18590815-785|title=Old Bailey online entry}}</ref>
The chief toxicology witness was Alfred Swaine Taylor, though in his testimony he admitted contamination to one of his arsenic tests.<ref name="SM">{{Citeweb|url=https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/documents/aa110111614/papers-relating-to-the-case-of-thomas-smethurst|title=Papers relating to the case of Thomas Smethurst|work=Science Museum}}</ref> The trial ended in a Guilty verdict<ref name="BMJ">{{citeweb|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25193720?seq=1|title=Trial of Thomas Smethurst|work=British Medical Journal|volume=2|number=139|date=27 August 1859|pages=707-711}}</ref> but Queen Victoria accepted Benjamin Brodie and Home Secretary George Cornewall Lewis's advice to grant Smethurst a royal pardon for the murder conviction,<ref>{{Citeweb|url=https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1860-01-27/debates/413adf26-fe3b-4a55-9473-71375ad6c381/CaseOfThomasSmethurst|title=Case Of Thomas Smethurst|volume=156|date=27 January 1860}}</ref> though he still had to serve a year in Wandsworth Prison for the bigamous marriage with Bankes.<ref name="SM"></ref><ref>{{Citeweb|url=https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/61810/records/90842|title=UK, Prison Commission Records, 1770-1951}}</ref> After his sentence he successfully defended the validity of Bankes' will (leaving him all her property) against a challenge from her relatives.<ref>'The Smethurst Case', ''Maidstone Telegraph'', 3 May 1862, page 6</ref>
==References== <references/>
{{DEFAULTSORT:Smethurst, Thomas}} Category:English people convicted of murder Category:1859 murders in Europe category:People from Cheshire Category:Year of death missing