In the Census (1851), William Thomas Lawley Smithies (1831-1881) was a 20-year-old, living in Glossop Road with Mary Littlewood (a widow and boarding house keeper) and her mother Elizabeth Smithies (also a widow).  Apparently, Elizabeth Smithies had been a dealer in hats and millinery.  William was described as a nephew and a cutlery manufacturer’s clerk.  Possibly he was illegitimate, because the parish baptismal register recorded that his mother was Harriet, a ‘spinster’, but no father was named.  Elizabeth Smithies died of ‘decay’ in 1853, aged 73.  By 1862, Smithies had launched a silver-plate cutlery business in Upper St Philip’s Road.  In Pawson & Brailsford’s Illustrated Guide (1862) he described himself as late manager to Henry Wilkinson. 

In 1864, however, the burial registers of the General Cemetery recorded a tragedy: in Elizabeth’s grave in the General Cemetery lie the remains of William Smithies’ children: Tom, William, and Ada – all buried on 20 December 1864.  By 1871, Smithies had moved to Islington, London, where he became a newspaper reporter and later newspaper manager.  He died at King’s Norton, Staffordshire, on 19 June 1881, aged 50.  His probate described him as late of Sienna Place, Balsall Heath Road, near Birmingham.  He left £50 to his widow, Sarah.