Neville Woodford Smith-Carington

Neville Woodford Smith-Carington (1888-1933) was born at Ashby Folville manor in Leicestershire.  He was educated at Harrow College and Exeter College, Oxford.   He became a barrister at the Inner Temple.   In April 1915, he married Ethel Wemyss Muir at St George's, Hanover Square, London.

He is buried in Ashby Folville churchyard.

Smith-Carington stood for the Conservative Party in Loughborough at the General Election of January 1910, but was not elected.  He then stood in the 1923 Rutland and Stamford by-election, winning the seat which he held until his death in 1933.

In his spare time, Smith-Carington had an interest in shire horses, and was president of the Shire Horse Society in 1931.

The stained glass window in the north aisle of St Mary's Ashby Folville was commissioned by the Smith-Carington family in memory of their mother Elizabeth Prince Smith-Carington and their brother Neville Woodford Smith-Carington MP.   It was designed in 1934 by Veronica Whall.   The subject is the Wedding Feast at Cana in Galilee and includes items of their interests, including shire horses in the left-hand panel.

In 1890, the manor of Ashby Folville had been purchased by Herbert Smith-Carington, the son of a successful Worcester nurseryman.  His grandson, Wing Commander John Smith-Carington inherited the Ashby Folville Estate, which extended to about 1200 acres, after the Second World War.  After the Wing Commander's death in 2009, the responsibility for the estate passed to his grandson, Alex Stroud.