The Real Granny Smith – A Passion for Apples

You know it, you love it: the Granny Smith apple. The gleaming chartreuse skin. That brilliant crunch. The perfect balance between a juicy and sweet tart that makes it the ideal apple to eat and cook with.

But did you know that there really was a Granny Smith?

Born Maria Ann Sherwood to a farming family in lush agricultural Sussex, England, in 1799, she married Thomas Smith, a farm worker, when she was 19 years old. They settled in Beckley parish, worked the land and started a family.

In 1838, the Smiths were contacted by government agents looking for farmers willing to relocate to New South Wales, Australia. The British colony had been founded 50 years earlier as a penal settlement, a place to send convicts. But as more and more free settlers arrived in New South Wales, farm laborers were desperately needed to feed the developing colony. Would-be emigrants were offered attractive financial incentives to move.

The Smiths jumped at the chance, packed up their five children, ages 1 to 16, and boarded the Lady Nugent. The journey from England to Australia was long and difficult, 13,000 miles on the crowded ship. The Smiths landed in Sydney in November 1838. By 1856, they owned almost 24 acres of fertile farmland in the Ryde district on the outskirts of Sydney.

The Smiths were “gardeners,” farmers who specialized in fruit trees. Maria was especially passionate about apples. On their land, the Smiths grew apples and pears, as well as vegetables, which they sold in markets in Sydney. Maria was also an expert baker, known for her fruitcakes.

It is said that one day a vendor in the markets gave Maria a box of wild Tasmanian apples to make a cake. She brought the fruit home, baked her desserts, and tossed the peels and cores in the garden compost heap along with the rest of the garden waste.

Soon, Maria found an apple seedling growing in the compost. She lovingly cared for the little tree until she finally bore fruit, the deliciously tart green beauties we know today. There, in her compost, it is believed that Maria had unknowingly crossed the wild apple tree with the domestic apple tree.

The earliest documented account of the apple by Maria Smith appeared in the June 25, 1924 issue of farmer and settler, in an interview with Ryde area fruit farmer Edwin Small. Small recalled that in 1868, Maria invited him and his father to see an apple seedling growing by a stream on her farm. According to Small, Maria explained that the seedling had developed from the remains of some French crabapple trees grown in Tasmania.

At the time of her accidental discovery of the apple, the much-loved Maria Smith was affectionately known in her community as “Granny.” Sadly, she died two years later, in 1870, long before the commercial success of her namesake apple. She was buried in St. Anne’s Churchyard in Ryde, where her headstone still stands.

In 1890, the fabulous Granny fruit first appeared as “Smith Seedling” at the Castle Hill Agricultural and Horticultural Show. The following year, “Granny Smith’s Seedlings” took top honors there for best cooking apples, and area farmers began growing their own.

In 1895, Albert H. Benson, a fruit expert for the New South Wales Department of Agriculture, deemed the “Granny Smith seedling” suitable for export. In fact, the Granny apple is characterized by remaining firm and crunchy for longer than other varieties. While Benson started the first large-scale cultivation of Granny Smith, Granny’s son-in-law James Spurway and later son Fred are credited with the early spread of the apple and its expansion into Australia and export to the United States. .

Today, Granny Smith apples are enjoyed around the world: eaten straight up and made into delicious pies, sauces, and juices. In Australia, a festival in honor of Granny attracts thousands of people annually. Edna Spurway, great-granddaughter of Granny Smith, attended the 2008 event at Ryde.

So next time you take a bite of one of those glorious green Grannies, say a little “thank you” to Maria Ann Smith of New South Wales, the real Granny Smith, apple lover to the core.