Lieutenant-General Sir Henry George Wakelyn Smith, 1st Baronet, GCB (28 June 1787 – 12 October 1860) was a notable English soldier and military commander in the British Army of the early 19th century.

A veteran of the Napoleonic Wars, he is also particularly remembered for his role in the Battle of Aliwal, India in 1846, his subsequent governorship of the Cape Colony, and as the husband of Lady Smith.

On 7 April, the day following the storming of Badajoz a well-born Spanish lady, whose entire property in the city had been destroyed, presented herself at the British lines seeking protection from the licence of the soldiery for herself and her sister, a child of fourteen.

[3] At the close of the war, Harry Smith volunteered for service in the United States, where he was present at the Battle of Bladensburg on 24 August 1814, and witnessed the burning of the capitol at Washington; which, as he said, "horrified us coming fresh from the Duke's humane warfare in the south of France.

Smith impressed Reynell, who helped his appointment as ADC to the Governor of Nova Scotia, Lieutenant-General Sir James Kempt in 1826.

In 1835 he accomplished the feat of riding the 550 miles from Cape Town to Grahamstown in less than six days; after he had restored confidence among the whites by his energetic measures, he was appointed governor of the Province of Queen Adelaide, where he gained influence over the native tribes, whom he vigorously set himself to civilize and benefit.

He was in command of a division under Sir Hugh Gough at the battles of Mudki and Ferozeshah, where he conspicuously distinguished himself, but was insufficiently supported by the commander-in-chief.

[4] In 1847 he returned to South Africa as Governor of Cape Colony and high commissioner, with the local rank of Lieutenant-General,[5] to grapple with the difficulties he had foreseen eleven years before.

Issues he faced ranged from domestic problems within the colony, such as the Convict Crisis of 1849, as well as external threats such as instability on the Cape's eastern frontier.

He protested strongly against the abandonment of the Orange River Sovereignty to the Boers, which was carried out two years after his departure, and he actively furthered the granting of responsible government to Cape Colony.

The story of Harry Smith and his wife in the Peninsular Campaign and the Battle of Waterloo is narrated in Georgette Heyer's novel The Spanish Bride (1940).