Ian Douglas Smith was born on 8 April 1919 in Selukwe, a small mining and farming town about 310 km (190 mi) southwest of the Southern Rhodesian capital Salisbury.
He had two elder sisters, Phyllis and Joan.
His father, John Douglas "Jock" Smith, originally came from Hamilton, Scotland; the son of a cattle breeder and butcher, he had emigrated to Rhodesia as an eighteen-year-old in 1898, and become a prominent rancher, butcher, miner and garage owner in Selukwe.
Jock and his English wife, Agnes (née Hodgson), had met in 1907, when she was sixteen, a year after her family's emigration to Selukwe from Frizington, Cumberland.
After Mr Hodgson sent his wife and children back to England in 1908, Jock Smith astonished them in 1911 by arriving unannounced in Cumberland to ask for Agnes' hand; they had not seen each other for three years.
They married in Frizington and returned together to Rhodesia, where Jock, an accomplished horseman, won the 1911 Coronation Derby at Salisbury.

The Smiths involved themselves heavily in local affairs.
Jock chaired the village management board and commanded the Selukwe Company of the Southern Rhodesia Volunteers; he also became a founding member of the Selukwe Freemasons' Lodge and president of the town's football and rugby clubs.
Agnes, who became informally known as "Mrs Jock", established and ran the Selukwe Women's Institute.
Both were appointed MBE (at different times) for their services to the community. "
My parents strove to instil principles and moral virtues, the sense of right and wrong, of integrity, in their children," Smith wrote in his memoirs. "
They set wonderful examples to live up to."
He considered his father "a man of extremely strong principles"—"one of the fairest men I have ever met and that is the way he brought me up.
He always told me that we're entitled to our half of the country and the blacks are entitled to theirs."
Raised on the frontier of the British Empire in the UK's youngest settler colony, Smith and his generation of white Rhodesians grew up with a reputation for being "more British than the British", something in which they took great pride.

Smith showed sporting promise from an early age.
After attending the Selukwe primary school, he boarded at Chaplin School in Gwelo, about 30 km (19 mi) away.
In his final year at Chaplin, he was head prefect captain of the school teams in cricket, rugby and tennis, recipient of the Victor Ludorum in athletics, and the school's outstanding rifle marksman. "
I was an absolute lunatic about sport," he later said; "I concede, looking back, that I should have devoted much more time to my school work and less to sport."
All the same, his grades were good enough to win a place at Rhodes University College, in Grahamstown in South Africa, then often attended by Rhodesian students—partly because Rhodesia then had no university of its own, and partly because of the common eponymous association with Cecil Rhodes.
Smith enrolled at the start of 1938, reading for a Bachelor of Commerce degree.
After injuring his knee playing rugby, he took up rowing and became stroke for the university crew.
Ian Douglas Smith was born on 8 April 1919 in Selukwe, a small mining and farming town about 310 km (190 mi) southwest of the Southern Rhodesian capital Salisbury. He had two elder sisters, Phyllis and Joan. His father, John Douglas "Jock" Smith, originally came from Hamilton, Scotland; the son of a cattle breeder and butcher, he had emigrated to Rhodesia as an eighteen-year-old in 1898, and become a prominent rancher, butcher, miner and garage owner in Selukwe. Jock and his English wife, Agnes (née Hodgson), had met in 1907, when she was sixteen, a year after her family's emigration to Selukwe from Frizington, Cumberland. After Mr Hodgson sent his wife and children back to England in 1908, Jock Smith astonished them in 1911 by arriving unannounced in Cumberland to ask for Agnes' hand; they had not seen each other for three years. They married in Frizington and returned together to Rhodesia, where Jock, an accomplished horseman, won the 1911 Coronation Derby at Salisbury.
The Smiths involved themselves heavily in local affairs. Jock chaired the village management board and commanded the Selukwe Company of the Southern Rhodesia Volunteers; he also became a founding member of the Selukwe Freemasons' Lodge and president of the town's football and rugby clubs. Agnes, who became informally known as "Mrs Jock", established and ran the Selukwe Women's Institute. Both were appointed MBE (at different times) for their services to the community. "My parents strove to instil principles and moral virtues, the sense of right and wrong, of integrity, in their children," Smith wrote in his memoirs. "They set wonderful examples to live up to." He considered his father "a man of extremely strong principles"—"one of the fairest men I have ever met and that is the way he brought me up. He always told me that we're entitled to our half of the country and the blacks are entitled to theirs." Raised on the frontier of the British Empire in the UK's youngest settler colony, Smith and his generation of white Rhodesians grew up with a reputation for being "more British than the British", something in which they took great pride.
Smith showed sporting promise from an early age. After attending the Selukwe primary school, he boarded at Chaplin School in Gwelo, about 30 km (19 mi) away. In his final year at Chaplin, he was head prefect captain of the school teams in cricket, rugby and tennis, recipient of the Victor Ludorum in athletics, and the school's outstanding rifle marksman. "I was an absolute lunatic about sport," he later said; "I concede, looking back, that I should have devoted much more time to my school work and less to sport." All the same, his grades were good enough to win a place at Rhodes University College, in Grahamstown in South Africa, then often attended by Rhodesian students—partly because Rhodesia then had no university of its own, and partly because of the common eponymous association with Cecil Rhodes. Smith enrolled at the start of 1938, reading for a Bachelor of Commerce degree. After injuring his knee playing rugby, he took up rowing and became stroke for the university crew.
Ian Smith