He Smith was a founding member of The Yacht Club.
The wealthiest commoner in England, Smith owned slate mines in North Wales. He combined a passion for sport (cricket, fox hunting and sailing) with a dynamic business and parliamentary career.
His first love was as Master of Hounds and he only took to yachting as a diversion fom the boredom he would otherwise have suffered from being unable to go out hunting He was only one of many such sportsmen, yet probably the greatest of them all, for it was he who, when visiting Paris after the Peace of Amiens, was presented to Napoleon who greeted him as the Premiere Chasseur d'Angleterre
He was Master of the Quorn for ten years and, in 1830 when he inherited a vast fortune from his father, he kept a hundred couples of hounds in his kennels at Tedworth, hunted the country four days a week, and often had two packs out on the same day. As Master he accepted no subscriptions from his followers, but hunted his hounds entirely at his own expense.
He became an enthusiastic yachtsman, owning a large cutter called Menai, another called Elizabeth and, later, a schooner called Jack o'Lantern.
His interest in steam-powered vessels was too advanced for his fellow members, and clashes with the Earl of Belfast over racing led to his resignation from the club in 1829.