Richard Abel Smith

Colonel Richard Francis Abel Smith (11 October 1933 – 23 December 2004) was a British Army officer.

He was the son of Colonel Sir Henry Abel Smith (1900–1993) and his wife Lady May Cambridge (1906-1994), née Princess May of Teck, a great-great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria and a niece of Queen Mary. He was born at Kensington Palace in London, England. Richard was the second of three children and the only boy. He was 312th in the line of succession to the British Throne as a great-great-grandson of Queen Victoria.

Education
Abel Smith was educated at Eton College, Eton, Berkshire, England; the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Berkshire, England; and the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, Gloucestershire, England.

Military career
He was commissioned into the Royal Horse Guards (The Blues). He was Aide-de-Camp to the Governor of Cyprus between 1957 and 1960. He was a military instructor between 1960 and 1963 at Sandhurst. He commanded the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry squadron of the Royal Yeomanry between 1967 and 1969. He held the office of Deputy Lieutenant (D.L.) of Nottinghamshire between 1970 and 1991 and High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire in 1978. He gained the rank of Honorary Colonel in 1979 in the service of the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry Regiment. He held the office of Vice Lord Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire between 1991 and 1999.

Marriage and children
He married Marcia Kendrew (born 27 March 1940; daughter of Sir Douglas Kendrew, a future Governor of Western Australia) on 28 April 1960 in St. Mary Abbott's Church, Kensington, London, England. They had one daughter;


 * Katherine Emma Abel Smith (born 11 March 1961); married on 16 October 1980 to The Hon. Hubert Wentworth Beaumont (born 13 April 1956), eldest son of the Rev. and Rt Hon. Timothy Beaumont, Baron Beaumont of Whitley. They had four children.
 * Amelia May Beaumont (12 November 1983); married Simon Peregrine Gauvain Murray on 4 October 2007. They have twins:
 * Matilda Alice Murray (11 April 2012)
 * Archibald Peregrine Murray (11 April 2012)
 * George Wentworth Beaumont (24 August 1985); married Katharine Hannah Fiona Fitzpatrick (born 18 November 1986) on 26 August 2016.
 * Richard Christian Beaumont (27 May 1989)
 * Michael Patrick Beaumont (23 April 1991); became engaged to Alice Emily Holborow in July 2019.

Later life
He died of a stroke at home in Blidworth Dale, Nottinghamshire, England on 23 December 2004. He was buried on 18 January 2005 in St James, Papplewick, Nottinghamshire, England.