I am a biographer, currently based in Auckland, New Zealand. My London publisher is interested in a new biography of the famous Whittlesey soldier, Sir Harry Smith, celebrated for his Peninsular War marriage to a 14-year-old Spanish convent girl, Juana Maria Los Dolores de Leon at Badajoz in 1812. The story of their battlefield marriage was the subject of The Spanish Bride, a best-selling romantic 1940 novel by Georgette Heyer - due to be reissued by Random House in June 2005. Harry, christened Henry George Wakelyn Smith, was born in Whittlesey on 28 June 1787, the second son of the local surgeon, John Smith. Harry was one of eleven surviving children. His mother, Eleanor Moore, was the daughter of the local vicar. Joining the British Army around 1804 Harry served with great distinction in South America, the Peninsular War under Sir John Moore and the Duke of Wellington, at Waterloo, in India, America and South Africa. He was made a baronet, became governor of the Cape of Good Hope and rose to the rank of Lieutenant-General. He and his Spanish wife, who died in October 1872, are buried in Whittlesey where a school, a chapel and a local pub, Hero of Aliwal, commemorate him. I am anxious to trace any descendants of Sir Harry, who died in London 12 October 1860. He and Juana produced no children. But some of his brothers did. Their descendants acquired hyphenated family names of which two were Moore-Smith and Ford-Smith. I would specially like to be put in touch with the descendants of Harry's brother, Charles - in particular the family of Mr Leslie Ford-Smith who, in the mid-1970s, had access to Sir Harry's private papers and helped his biographer, Joseph Lehmann. Ian Mackersey 12 Kakariki Avenue Mt Eden Auckland 1004 New Zealand PH: 64-9-638-7585 FAX: 64-9-630-0964 e-mail: imp@ihug.co.nz