Biography

John Smith, Iain Chaluim Ruaidh, was born in Bosta, Lewis on the 26th of December 1857. He was the eldest son of four children of Calum Smith and Mary MacIver, Màiri Thormoid, from Tobson. The family moved from Bosta in 1878 to 18 Kirkibost. People had to leave Bosta because there was not enough peat left near the village for fuel, and so they got land in Kirkibost.

John was quite extraordinary because, despite not receiving formal education, he could read and write in English and Gaelic. He was a crofter and fisherman and a skilled bard who wrote many songs. He was very young when he became a Christian, and from then on he wrote hymns and spiritual poems.

He spent most of his life in Harris. He was a missionary in Scalpay for eighteen years. He spent some time in Grimsay, North Uist, and afterwards returned to Harris, to Borve. One of his brothers, Donald, or Doisean as he was called, was also a missionary in Ness and in Bays, Harris.

Although John was married three times, he had only one child, who died before birth. In 1896 he married Mary MacCuish from Harris, who died in childbirth. In 1914 he married Mary MacDonald from Grimsay, North Uist, but she died shortly after their wedding. His mother went to Harris to live with him in her later years and she walked to Harris through the mountains of Uig and northern Harris. In 1919 he married Mary MacLellan from Borve. Mary was about thirty years younger than him and lived until the nineteen-fifties. She worked in Borve Lodge and collected many of John's writings.

John passed away in Scarista on the 14th of April 1924 and is buried in Rodel Cemetery beside his mother.

List of compositions

'S e Ìos' na Aonar