He was born in Wellington to pastoralist William Smith and Mary Ann Williamson.
He attended Christ Church School in Sydney and worked as a solicitor's clerk and then cattle dealer before establishing a butchery business around 1868.
On 25 May 1868 he married Clara Linda Potter Leslie; they would have thirteen children.
[1] Smith was a Newtown alderman from 1871 to 1908, serving four separate terms as mayor.
[2] In 1885 he was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly as the member for Newtown.