John Orrin Smith

Coming of age in 1821, he inherited some money, and bought a part-proprietorship in a newspaper, The Sunday Monitor, on which Douglas Jerrold worked as a compositor.

[2] Smith died of apoplexy on 15 October 1843, at 11 Mabledon Place, Burton Crescent, London.

[2] After much hack-work, Smith was employed by Léon Curmer of Paris to engrave a number of the woodblocks for his edition of Paul et Virginie (1835).

[2] His contribution to the technique of wood-engraving was admired by contemporary commentators including one, writing in the London and Westminster Review in 1838, that Orrin Smith was an "able and intelligent cultivator of his art, and has introduced improvements and attempted effects ... which have advanced it.

His son, Harvey Edward Orrin Smith, also practised wood-engraving, but then became a director of the firm of James Burn & Co., bookbinders.