Tributes paid to leading South Yorkshire who worked with celebrities and people from all walks of life

Steve Smith MBE died on Sunday at Barnsley Hospital.

His daughter Rebecca said: “My dad helped so many people in his life, always with humour and humility. He was so well respected that in the few hours after he died we received over 170 messages of condolence and that number is growing by the hour.”

Rebecca has written this tribute...

‘Smithy’, as he was widely known, was born in 1948 in Sheffield, the elder son of Ethel and Douglas. The family eventually moved to Barnsley where his brother Neville was later born.

While many knew of Steve’s illustrious law career, his public speaking, his writing, his books, his regular radio and television appearances, and his charity work, what many didn’t know was that Smithy’s dream was of qualifying as a Solicitor and for him and his brother to run a law firm together. But this was not to be as Neville and his wife were tragically killed in a traffic accident just months after their wedding, when they were aged 24.

Steve initially entered the legal profession at 16, as an office boy with his friend and local football companion Les Walton at a Barnsley firm. By 1981 Steve had formed Wilford Smith, with another Solicitor, Steven Wilford, and with only a room and a desk to share, two chairs they had borrowed, and hand-made business cards they had only one client to start with.

This soon expanded over a matter of only weeks to 30, and in as many weeks, Smithy was managing a diary of over 150 clients, and the practice had to move from its one room into other offices and later into the old Halifax Building Society offices on Westgate in Rotherham, employing over 60 staff.

In 2017 Wilford Smith expanded further and offices at Meadowhall Business Park. But it was at the recently refurbished Westgate offices where this year events were planned after lockdown to celebrate the firm’s 40 years and Smithy’s 56th year in practice.

He actually did a lot of the clean-up operation himself in readiness for the return, and a treasured photograph of Smithy, receiving the “Freedom of Rotherham” award in 2011 hangs on the wall of the entrance.

He spent a lifetime defending the rights of the underdog. I remember him explaining how everyone had the right to a good defence: ‘I remind people that everyone has a right to be defended, especially if they haven’t done anything wrong. And if we all thought it was wrong to fight for the man in the street, we would be a very poor world indeed’, he would say.

Outside the legal profession he worked tirelessly for various charities and, in 2006, he was awarded an MBE by Her Majesty the Queen. He was Patron of PACT, the children’s cancer charity in Sheffield, a position which he greatly treasured, and he helped to raise millions of pounds for the Western Park Cancer Hospital over the past two decades.

He even took part in a professional pantomime to gain publicity for the PACT charity, and purchased tickets for members and children from the ward to come to see him “make people laugh in a series of silly costumes”, something which he recreated severally in various events at venues up and down the country and working alongside pals like Jeremy Beadle, Tony Capstick and many others over the years, to raise money for charity.

He successfully battled a rare form of cancer in 2017, and returned to work to help continue to grow the firm, regularly appearing in court and when he’d finished, walking up the road to hospital for treatment.

Although he had been unwell earlier this year, he had been looking forward to returning back to work in the courts following a period of isolation.

His devastating and sudden passing on Sunday has prompted so many messages and calls from across the country and abroad, from his friends - of which there are so many - his peers and colleagues in the legal profession, people he has volunteered alongside in his charity work, celebrity friends with whom he has worked over the years, and many defendants he has represented.

The same terms have been used so commonly in referring to him; “A Gentleman”, "a larger than life legend”, “a unique character”, “a Beautiful Soul”, “a beloved mentor”, “a great great man and even greater friend”.

One tribute came from a medical person whom Smithy knew when he was receiving treatment in hospital in 2017 at his beloved Hallamshire Hospital: “In life, when you meet someone whose soul and larger than life personality and unbelievable strength to overcome such adversity and illness, even facing kicking after kicking, that stays with you and you are touched by their incredible inspiration. We honestly thought he was immortal. We are truly devastated.”

There are very few people who have worked tirelessly in a profession that tends to result in being poorly regarded, but in Steve Smith’s case, so many have remarked that he was probably the only person they have met in all their time in the profession for whom no one could ever say a bad word. He would have been very moved by that.

Arrangements for his funeral and memorial are being made and a report will be released shortly.