William A. (William Andrew) Smith

Born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, on November 29, 1802, William Andrew Smith entered the Virginia Conference in 1825 after joining the Methodist church as a teenager. He went on to become a prominent minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and was widely known as a preacher and public speaker.

Smith also worked in higher education. He served as president of Randolph-Macon College and later of Central University in Fayette, Missouri, while continuing to publish sermons, addresses, and religious arguments. His writing often engaged directly with the major controversies of the 1800s, especially questions of church authority, society, and slavery.

In 1870 he was elected a bishop, but he died that same year, on March 1, in Richmond, Virginia. Today he is remembered as both a church leader and a prolific religious author whose career was closely tied to the intellectual and denominational struggles of his time.