Robert Burdett Smith
Robert Burdett Smith CMG (25 August 1837 – 2 July 1895) was a solicitor and politician in colonial New South Wales. He served in the NSW Legislative Assembly and later in the NSW Legislative Council.
Born in Sydney as Robert Lloyd Smith, he was a twin son of John Lloyd Smith and Mary Ann Salmon. He studied at William Timothy Cape’s school under Dr D. A. McKean and J. Sheridan Moore. He later changed his name to Robert Burdett Smith and qualified as a solicitor of the Supreme Court of New South Wales in 1863, practicing in Sydney.
He was president of the Australian Patriotic Association at one time and served as secretary to the Captain Cook Memorial Fund committee.
Smith represented the Hastings and Macleay electorates in the NSW Legislative Assembly from 1870 to 1889. In 1889 he was nominated to the NSW Legislative Council.
He acted as a Commissioner for New South Wales at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in 1886 and was the Executive Commissioner for the colony at the Melbourne Centennial Exhibition in 1888. In 1890 he was made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG).
The town of Smithtown, New South Wales, on the Macleay River, is named after him.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 04:12 (CET).