Born at St Minver Vicarage, Cornwall, on 21 January 1861, the fifth child and third surviving son of the Rev William Hart-Smith, afterwards Rector of St Peter's, Bedford, and Charlotte Pierce Lawrence his wife. He was educated at a preparatory school in Maidenhead under the Rev E H Pierce, at Bedford Grammar School, and at University College Hospital. He served as house surgeon and obstetric assistant at the Hospital and as assistant demonstrator of anatomy at University College Hospital Medical School. At the University of London he obtained first-class honours at the MB BS examination. In 1889 he bought a practice at Leominster, Herefordshire, where he remained until 1911 when he sold it. During this period he took an active part in founding the Leominster Cottage Hospital. Soon after the outbreak of the first world war he offered his services, which were accepted, and he was sent to Osborne to act as second in command under Colonel Douglas Wardrop with the rank of major, gazetted on 17 January 1917. At the end of the war he took up work under the Cornwall County Council as medical inspector of schools, with headquarters at Truro, and this post he held until 1926 when he retired on attaining the age limit. He married on 27 April 1889 Margaret Elizabeth Parry. She died in 1917 without children. He died on 18 March 1934 at Dunbrody, Port Hill Road, Shrewsbury, and was buried in the general cemetery of that city.