Thank you spendlove for your suggestion; I do have all the relevent Smedley wills that I can find and have personally transcribed the Sawley PR 1655-1900 for all the Smedley and associated family entries.
But not everyone occurs in the PR (only extant from 1650) so I have been hunting for them in other documents. I have two other families that were baptising in Sawley in the 1680's , that of John Smedley, farmer and churchwarden at Long Eaton, and Alice Wilson nee Piggin and William and Anne nee Brown. There were two Smedley marriages in the 1670's, Elizabeth & Thomas Hopwell 25 Jun 1672 and Mary and George Hugnal 27 Jan 1677. In addition, Christian Smedley of Sawley m Lester Trice of Barton Notts. 13 Jan 1686.
If there were no Smedleys in the Hearth Tax, from whence did they come becomes my question. I have now ordered a copy of the Hearth Tax book so I'll be able to search further. I already know that there were other Smedleys in the Hundred at the time so I'm sure I'll have some fun trying to link them all up.
Thanks again for your help
Regards, Darryl