Richard Michael Smith, FBA, FRHistS (born 3 January 1946) is a historical geographer and demographer.
[2] After lecturing in population studies at Plymouth Polytechnic for a year, Smith took up an assistant lectureship in historical geography at the University of Cambridge from 1974 to 1976.
He then joined the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure and was its assistant director for two years from 1981 to 1983.
From 2003 to 2011, he was also professor of historical geography and demography, and was head of the Department of Geography at Cambridge from 2007 to 2010; he retired from his fellowship in 2010 (having been vice-master of Downing College for six years) and from the Group two years later.
[1] According to his British Academy profile, Smith's research focuses on "the history of marriage, principally in medieval Europe, peasant inheritance practices and customary law, welfare practices and their demographic correlates in medieval and early modern England and urban historical epidemiology.