author
John Thomas Smith
1766–1833
A lively recorder of old London, this engraver and writer captured streets, characters, and disappearing corners of the city with unusual curiosity. He is also remembered for a frank, sometimes sharp-edged life of the sculptor Joseph Nollekens.
3 Audiobooks
A Book for a Rainy Day; or, Recollections of the Events of the Years 1766-1833
by John Thomas Smith
The Cries of London Exhibiting Several of the Itinerant Traders of Antient and Modern Times
by John Thomas Smith
Lives of Famous London Beggars With Forty Portraits of the Most Remarkable.
by John Thomas Smith
About the author
Born in London in 1766, John Thomas Smith was an English painter, engraver, and antiquarian who became known as "Antiquity Smith." He trained in the artistic world from a young age and built a career documenting the city around him, especially its older buildings, neighborhoods, and everyday street life.
His books and prints are valued for the way they preserve scenes of London that were already vanishing in his own lifetime. Alongside topographical and antiquarian work, he wrote a notable biography of the sculptor Joseph Nollekens, remembered for its unusually candid tone.
Smith later served as Keeper of Prints at the British Museum. He died in 1833, leaving behind work that still appeals to readers interested in London's history, art, and the vivid details of ordinary urban life.