George Shergold Smith (16 August 1846 – 13 December 1877) was a Royal Navy lieutenant from Honiton, Devon, and one of the earliest missionaries sent by the Church Missionary Society to the kingdom of Buganda. The son of Captain Smith RN, long associated with the Kennaway family at Escot, he served in the Ashanti campaign of 1873, during which he sustained an injury to his right eye. In 1875 he entered St John’s Divinity Hall, Highbury, with the intention of taking Holy Orders, and when volunteers were sought for the new mission to Eastern Equatorial Africa he was among the first to offer. His combination of naval experience and steady character led the CMS Committee to appoint him leader of the pioneer Nyanza Mission party.
Smith sailed from Teignmouth on 11 March 1876 aboard the Highland Lassie, an 80‑ton yacht fitted with auxiliary steam power. At Aden he transferred to the Cashmere, joining Alexander Mackay and Thomas O’Neill, who were also bound for Lake Victoria. The party carried with them a cedar-built twin-screw steam launch, the Daisy, constructed at Teddington and shipped in sections. They reached Zanzibar on 29 May 1876 and began the long overland journey towards the lake. Smith arrived at Kageyi on 1 April 1877, joining Wilson and O’Neill, who had reached the lake earlier in the year.
On 25 June 1877 Smith and the Reverend C.T. Wilson set off from Kageyi in the Daisy on the first deliberate crossing of Lake Victoria’s open waters from south to north. Smith’s naval training made him the natural navigator, and after thirty-five hours they anchored in Murchison Bay on the evening of 26 June. The crossing was notable not only for its speed but for the dangers encountered en route. Attempting to land on a small island, they were attacked by islanders who hurled stones and fired poisoned arrows. A stone shattered Smith’s blue spectacles into his left eye, destroying its sight, while Wilson was struck in the shoulder by a poisoned arrow. Despite being half-blinded and bleeding heavily, Smith sucked the poison from Wilson’s wound and almost certainly saved his life.
Smith and Wilson reached Rubaga, the capital of Buganda, on 30 June 1877, becoming the first CMS missionaries to arrive at the court of King Mutesa. Their reception was cautious but favourable, and their arrival marked the beginning of sustained CMS activity in the region. Smith’s service, however, was short-lived. On 13 December 1877 he and Thomas O’Neill were murdered with their entire party on the island of Ukerewe. The circumstances remain unclear, but the attack ended the first phase of the CMS Nyanza Mission and made Smith one of its earliest martyrs. A bust of him was later presented to CMS House on 14 March 1881.
Smith’s career, though brief, combined naval service, missionary endeavour, and considerable personal courage. His navigation of Lake Victoria, his rescue of Wilson under attack, and his leadership of the first CMS party to reach Rubaga made him a significant figure in the early history of the Uganda mission. His death at Ukerewe brought a violent end to an undertaking that had begun with optimism and determination, and his name remains closely associated with the hazardous beginnings of Christian missionary work around Lake Victoria.
