Robert Payne Smith

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Robert Payne Smith
Born	November 7, 1818 Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire
Died	March 31, 1895 Canterbury Cathedral deanery
Occupation	Theologian
Spouse	Catherine Langley
Children	two sons and four daughters
Parents	Robert Smith and Esther Argles Payne

Robert Payne Smith, D.D., M.A. (1819-1895) was Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford and Canon of Christ Church from 1865 until 1870, when he was appointed Dean of Canterbury by Queen Victoria on the advice of William Ewart Gladstone.

Payne was born in Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, on November 7, 1818, the only son and second of four children of Robert Smith, a land agent, and his wife, Esther Argles Payne, of Leggsheath, Surrey. He attended Chipping Campden grammar school and was taught Hebrew by his eldest sister, Esther. In 1837 he obtained an exhibition at Pembroke College, Oxford to study classics. In 1841 he graduated with second-class honours. Payne won the Boden Sanskrit scholarship in 1840 and the Pusey and Ellerton Hebrew scholarship in 1843. In the same year he became a fellow of Pembroke and was ordained a deacon, and became a priest a year later.

He gave to 1869 Bampton Lectures at Oxford and from 1870 until 1885 he was a member of the Old Testament Revision Committee (the whole duration of the Committee's existence).

He published the Thesaurus Syriacus (1868-1901, supplement added 1927), later abridged and translated into English by his daughter Jessie as A Compendious Syriac Dictionary (1903). Payne Smith died at his deanery on March 31, 1895 and was buried on April 3 in St Martin's churchyard, Canterbury.