Alexander Smith (poet)

Alexander Smith (1829/30, probably 31 December 1829[a] – 5 January 1867[3]) was a Scottish poet, labelled as one of the Spasmodic School, and essayist.

[1][7] There was talk of him being trained for the ministry, but the family's finances required that he leave school at the age of eleven and follow his father's trade in the muslin factory.

Alexander was an avid reader, and became co-founder, with like-minded youngsters, of the Glasgow Addisonian Literary Society.

Early poems were published in The Glasgow Citizen, whose proprietor and editor James Hedderwick became a patron and friend.

In Edinburgh, Smith was a near neighbour of the landscape painter Horatio McCulloch, who had also grown up in Glasgow, and the two became firm friends.

On 24 April 1857 Smith married Marcella's cousin, Flora Nicolson Macdonald (1829–1873), at Ord House, her parents' home on Sleat peninsula in Skye.

He had to support a growing family, and maintain 'Gesto Villa', a large house in Wardie that had been bought for them by an uncle of Flora who had made his fortune in India from Indigo.

It also has a bronze head image of Smith in profile, added by William Brodie (1815 – 1881) who also sculpted Greyfriars Bobby.

[10][i] Smith's 1857 poem "Glasgow" was adapted into song in 2022 by Revival-Folk band Bird in the Belly for their concept album After the City.