Augustus John Smith

By 1820 five of the six islands of Scilly were desperate, their inhabitants literally starving, their future more than bleak. The tenant, the Duke of Leeds had declined to renew his lease, and the Duchy of Cornwall were desperate to unload their responsibility. Augustus Smith’s arrival in 1834 changed everything since he was a man of vision, hard but generous, the first lessee ever to actually live on the islands. This is his story, with details of his tenancy, his death, his will, his affair with a Tresco shop girl, and the three children he fathered, much of which has never before been made public.