SWHS Publications no 3 (2012), ed. Jacqueline Cooper, 72 pages. ISBN 978-1-873669-08-2, price £7.50
One of Saffron Walden’s most distinguished sons, Sir Thomas Smith was the first Regius Professor of Civil Law, and Vice-Chancellor, at Cambridge, Provost of Eton, Principal Secretary of State to Edward VI and Elizabeth I, ambassador to France and the Low Countries, Privy Councillor, and – not least – the builder of Hill Hall, one of England’s first great Palladian mansions. He was the author of two of the most important political writings of Tudor times, The Discourse of the Commonweal (1549); and De Republica Anglorum (1562-1565), an authoritative account of the English constitution and legal system. Smith played a part in obtaining the town’s new charter in 1549, re-founding the Almshouses and obtaining a new charter for the grammar school.