Major Henry Francis Smith was an officer with the 1st Middlesex Artillery Volunteers. He was originally commissioned into the 1st Tower Hamlets Volunteer Artillery in 1861, being made Captain and Commandant the following year, before being promoted Major in 1864 and transferring to the 1st Middlesex Artillery Volunteers the following year.
He was a keen and active Freemason. As well as being an initiate of Victoria Rifles Lodge at the first regular meeting following the consecration (and with Rudge and Greenhill), he was one of the Founders of the Buckingham and Chandos Lodge No 1150, the Lodge of the 1st Middlesex Artillery Volunteers and also the Lodge that counted the Dracula author Bram Stoker as a member.
He was in the Holy Royal Arch and in the Mallet & Chisel Mark Lodge. He was also an Emt Com of the Temple Cressing Encampment, Prov Grand Captain and a life governor of several of the charities.
He died at the young age of 41 on 2 July 1869.
The Masonic press wrote that “his liberality was unbounded, his courtesy that of a gentleman and his loss is deeply deplored“.