At the Circulating Library

Author: Constance Isabella Stuart Smith

Author: Constance Isabella Stuart Smith (1859–1930)

Biography: Constance Isabella Stuart Smith was born in 1859 in London, the daughter of the Rev. Hinton C. Smith, the curate of Chipperfield. She was educated in Belgium and Germany and attended King's College, London. In the 1890s, she began writing novels beginning with The Repentance of Paul Wentworth (1889). In the twentieth century, her interests turned to labour law and she wrote books and articles on the subject, including The Case for Wages Boards (1905). Smith served in a number of official capacities: senior woman inspector of factories (1913–1921), joint-secretary of the Women's Employment Committee (1917–1919), and deputy chief inspector of factories (1921–1925). For her social work, she was awarded an O.B.E. She never married and died in 1930. Her friend and co-worker Gertrude Tuckwell wrote a memoir of her life.

Author Tags:

• Civil Servants

References: British Census (1881); Times (29 March 1930)

Fiction Titles:

1. The Repentance of Paul Wentworth.  3 vol.  London: Bentley, 1889.
2. The Riddle of Lawrence Haviland.  3 vol.  London: Bentley, 1890.
3. One Way of Love.  3 vol.  London: Hurst and Blackett, 1892.
4. A Cumberer of the Ground.  3 vol.  London: Methuen, 1894.
5. The Backslider: A Story of Today.  2 vol.  London: Bentley, 1896.
6. Prisoners of Hope.  1 vol.  London: A. D. Innes, 1898.
7. Love Hath Wings.  1 vol.  London: William Isbister, 1899.
8. The Magic Word.  1 vol.  London: William Isbister, 1900.
9. Corban.  1 vol.  London: Hurst and Blackett, 1901.