Sydney Herbert Smith (27 April 1885 – 12 June 1984) was a Labour Party politician in England.
[1] Sydney Smith came from a family of tailors that moved from Birmingham, to Ipswich, and finally to London where he was born in 1885.
His business expanded into books especially of Fabian Society literature, from which he developed a wider interest in politics.
A lifelong bachelor, his niece acted as his lady mayoress, although it is known that he did propose to Kathleen Parker whom he subsequently sponsored through St Hilda's College, Oxford.
The endowment became perpetual through a trust and so emerged the Alderman Sydney Smith Lecture.