Goldwin Smith was born on August 13, 1823, in Reading, England.

He was a historian, writer, and journalist. Educated at Eton College and Magdalen College, Oxford (B.A., 1845; M.A., 1848), he was elected a Fellow of Oxford in 1847. A Fellow in Civil Law at University College London (1846), he was called to the bar in 1850 at Lincoln’s Inn, but he never pursued a legal career. As a member of the Royal Commission of 1850 to inquire into the reform of the university, he published a pamphlet, The Reorganization of the University of Oxford (1868). He was a tutor of King Edward, and in 1858, he was appointed Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford, retaining the position until 1866. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1865. Smith first visited America during the Civil War, and in 1866, he was appointed Professor of English and Constitutional History at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. In 1871, he moved to Toronto, Ontario, but retained an honorary professorship at Cornell and returned to campus frequently to lecture. He got married in 1875 to Harriet Elizabeth Dixon (1826–1909) and spent the rest of his life in her manor named the Grange. He edited the Canadian Monthly and founded the Week and the Bystander. In 1893, Smith was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society. He published articles in a weekly The Farmer's Sun and wrote My Memory of Gladstone (1904).

He died on June 7, 1910, in Toronto, Ontario.