Smythies may have been born Harriet Maria Gordon in 1813[1] however there are other sources that suggest dates varying from 1809 to 1817.
Smythie had four siblings, including a sister Jane who was a noted benefactor[2] and a brother, Edward, who was Sergeant-at-Arms at the coronation of Queen Victoria in 1838.
[3] In 1871 her sister Jane Weld died leaving a large fortune to charity and small annuities to their mother and their sister Elizabeth Matilda Gordon.
Her husband used the court case about her sister's will to establish a motive for her request for the marriage to be separated.
This caused her to abandon the case and she remained actually but not legally separated from her husband until she died in 1883.