Cecil Humphery-Smith

British genealogist, herald, biochemist, and mycologist (1928–2021)

Cecil Raymond Julian Humphery Smith (29 October 1928 – 12 January 2021) was a British genealogist and heraldist.

Cecil Humphery Smith was born on 29 October 1928 to Frederick Humphery Smith of Burgess Hill, West Sussex, a company secretary appointed MBE in 1951 for his role as honorary secretary of the Burgess Hill Savings Committee, and his wife Agnes Violet (née Boxall). His godfather was the priest and headmaster Julian Bickersteth, who encouraged the development of the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies and in whose memory Humphery Smith established a prize at the institute. He was educated at Hurstpierpoint College and, after graduating from the University of London in 1950 with a BSc, undertook postgraduate studies in Biochemistry and Mycology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the Parma Piacenza Department of Agronomy. In 2008 Humphery Smith was awarded an honorary Fellowship of Canterbury Christ Church University. He long was the only British member of Council of L'Académie Internationale d'Héraldique and received several other academic and literary honours and awards from around the world. In 2004, he was made an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for "Services to Education in Heraldry and Genealogy." After being severely injured by a reversing vehicle in a car park in 2005 Humphery Smith gave up lecturing, but continued to edit the Family History journal. they had one son and five daughters.