Colonel Sir Henry Abel Smith, (8 March 1900 – 24 January 1993) was a British Army officer who served as Governor of Queensland, Australia. He married Lady May Cambridge, a niece of Queen Mary, consort of King George V.
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Early life and family
Abel Smith was born in London on 8 March 1900, the eldest son of Lieutenant Colonel Francis Abel Smith (1861–1908) of Wilford House, Nottinghamshire, and of Coleorton Hall, Leicestershire, and of Selsdon Park, a descendant of the prominent banking Smith family founded by Abel Smith (1717–1788), by his wife Madeline St. Maur Seymour (1862–1951), a descendant of Edward Seymour, 8th Duke of Somerset.
His grandparents were Henry Abel Smith (1826–1890) and Elizabeth Mary Pym (1826–1877), a daughter of Francis Pym (1790–1860) and Lady Lucy Leslie-Meville (1796–1848), a daughter of Alexander Leslie-Melville, 9th Earl of Leven. His younger brother was Brigadier Sir Alexander Abel Smith (1904–1980), whose second wife was Henriette Alice Cadogan (d.2005), a descendant of the 4th Earl Cadogan, who between 1949 and 1987 served as a lady-in-waiting to Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II).