Levin Smith, Sir Archibald
LEVIN SMITH, SIR ARCHIBALD
LEVIN SMITH, SIR ARCHIBALD (1836–1901), British judge. Levin Smith was the son of a gentile landowner. His mother was the daughter of a Polish Jewish immigrant, Zadik Levin. Educated at Cambridge, where he was a successful athlete, he became a barrister in 1856 and a judge of the Queen's Bench in 1883, when he was knighted. He was one of the two judges who presided over the criminal allegations made in the Times newspaper about Charles Stewart Parnell, the Irish Nationalist leader, which made him the center of national attention. Levin Smith served as a judge of the Court of Appeals from 1892 until 1900, when he was appointed Master of the Rolls, one of the three most senior British judicial positions. Suffering ill health, he was forced to resign after only a year and died shortly afterwards.
bibliography:
odnb online.
[William D. Rubinstein (2nd ed.)]