For a country with a population of just five million, New Zealand produces a disproportionately large number of gifted jurists, many of whom find their way to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. One such was Tony Smith, whose death at the age of 78 deprives the law of a notable scholar, universities of a distinguished leader, the Inn of a respected Bencher and many of us of a cherished friend.

Tony was Called by Middle Temple in 1992 – he was already qualified as a barrister and solicitor in New Zealand – and was elected an Honorary Bencher in 2000 (when members of the Inn not in independent practice, such as academics, became honorary rather than ordinary benchers) and he served on the Education and Student Affairs Committee. His return to New Zealand not long after unfortunately meant that he was less involved in the Inn than might otherwise have been the case. 

Anthony Terry Hanmer Smith was born in New Zealand on Sunday 12 January 1947. He read law at the University of Canterbury, obtaining a first in the LLM and almost immediately was appointed an assistant lecturer, but within two years, armed with Commonwealth and Tapp scholarships, he took the well-trodden path to Cambridge and, specifically, Caius. 

Within no time he was elected to a fellowship (joining fellow New Zealander, the late Len Sealy) and appointed college lecturer in law and tutor. After eight years, as no University post had become available, he moved to the University of Durham as Reader and then on to Reading as Professor, a period in which his research work began to flourish. 

But the lure of Cambridge, and Caius, was too great and after nine years away he returned as a University Lecturer and Fellow of Caius. Although he had swapped his Reading chair for a Cambridge lectureship, his rise in Cambridge was rapid. Within four years he was a Reader and after another two he was appointed Professor of Criminal and Public Laws (the plural ‘Laws’ always irked me!).

Cambridge, and particularly Caius, to which he was devoted, was the perfect home for Tony. His marriage in 1968 to Gillian Innes had been dissolved in 1981 and he lived the life of a bachelor don in College, although he had a house in Islington and was a tenant in the media set 5 Raymond Buildings. 

It would have taken something very special to prise him away from Cambridge but two factors serendipitously came together. 

Tony’s son Tim had likewise taken the road to England (having mostly grown up and been educated in New Zealand). He had obtained a first in the LLM at Cambridge, though at Sidney Sussex rather than Caius, been Called to the English Bar, was in practice in London and was planning to marry fellow New Zealander and lawyer Nicole Moreham who was a Fellow of Caius alongside her future father-in-law! Nicole is well-known in this country as co-author of The Law of Privacy and the Media (OUP), now in its fourth edition. 

Tim and Nicole decided to return to New Zealand, Tim to practise first as a solicitor and later as a barrister and Nicole to join the Faculty of Law at the Victoria University of Wellington (‘Vic’) where she is now a professor and a fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. 

Tony was very close to his family but a return to New Zealand required a suitable job that would compensate for his beloved Cambridge. In the event, that post fell vacant: it was the Deanship of the Faculty of Law at Vic, together with a Chair and the position of Pro-Vice-Chancellor. 

In all his previous academic posts, Tony had held leadership positions: at Durham, he was Dean; at Reading he was Head of Department; at Cambridge he chaired the Faculty Board; and he also chaired the Committee of Heads of UK Law Schools. He was thus admirably qualified and suitably experienced for the role at Vic and he was duly appointed in 2007 and proved a great success. 

It was a most happy return, particularly as Tim and Nicole had three children. He was a devoted grandfather and they in turn developed the closest relationship with him, particularly enjoying his celebrated Sunday roasts. 

Tony held a number of visiting professorships during his career: Iowa, Northwestern in Chicago, Otago, Paris II, City in London, Auckland and finally as the Arthur Goodhart Visiting Professor of Legal Science at Cambridge in 2015-16, where he could return to Caius of which he was by then a Life Fellow. 

He specialised in criminal law and public law and authored or co-authored a number of books as well as innumerable articles, case notes and chapters in books. His books include Offences Against Public Order, Property Offences, Harm and Culpability (with AP Simester), and The Law of Contempt (with Master David Eady), now known as Arlidge, Eady and Smith on Contempt. (The first of the original authors was another Middle Templar and former Treasurer, the late Master Tony Arlidge.) 

He also took on the editorship of Glanville Williams’ admirable little book, Learning the Law, after Master Williams’ death. Tony had been very close professionally to Glanville Williams QC FBA, the Rouse Ball Professor of English Law at Cambridge, probably the most notable British jurist of the 20th Century.

All Tony’s writings were characterised by penetrating analysis, deep research, cogent reasoning and great lucidity. An issue of the Victoria University of Wellington Law Review (Vol. 54, No. 1) was published in his honour in 2023, containing essays by many of the academics, lawyers and judges whom he had taught or worked with.

Tony’s published work first attracted a Cambridge PhD in 1985 (his examiners being the two pre-eminent criminal lawyers Professor Sir John Smith QC FBA and Professor Williams) and 15 years later an LLD. 

In addition to his impressive body of writing, he participated in many other scholarly and legal activities. For example, he led for several years on criminal law for what is now called the Society of Legal Scholars and he served on the JUSTICE Committee on Miscarriages of Justice. The identification and correction of miscarriages of justice in the criminal law was of particular interest to him and he was delighted when years of advocacy culminated in the creation of the New Zealand Criminal Cases Review Commission in 2020.

Aside from the law, his interests were many and varied: opera, wine, travel, buildings and architecture, cookery, rugby and cricket (of which his knowledge was prodigious).

His quiet and undemonstrative manner, his profound commitment to the law and to the academic enterprise, his genuine interest in people and his kindness, his gift for friendship, his intellectual strengths and his managerial talents combined to command the respect, admiration and affection of students, colleagues and the wider profession. His contribution to the law and to the institutions with which he was associated was considerable and enduring. 

Tony died, his son Tim at his side, on Tuesday 19 August 2025 in his beautiful late Victorian house in Wellington, amidst the furniture and antiques he had collected over a lifetime, after struggling with declining health for two years, during which time he was lovingly supported by his family. 

The flags of Caius and the Middle Temple were lowered in his honour and in memory of a fine lawyer, scholar and teacher who will be sorely missed but long remembered by friends, colleagues and generations of students.

Kindly written by Master Graham Zellick