Nyren says that Small was "a remarkably well-made and well-knit man of a handsome countenance and honest expression". He was married and had at least five children including three daughters who died in childhood (see photograph of the family's tombstone). His wife Ann (born c.1739) died on 22 November 1802, aged 63. His two sons, Jack and Eli, also played senior cricket. Mrs Ann Small was a vociferous supporter of the Hambledon team and was a regular attendee at its matches, often travelling with the team to away games too. Outside cricket, Small's profession was originally a cobbler but he later expanded his business to include the manufacture of cricket bats and balls. Small was musical and could play both the fiddle and the double bass. One of his greatest admirers was the cricket patron John Sackville, 3rd Duke of Dorset, who, when learning of Small's musical skills, sent him "a handsome violin". Small returned the favour by sending the Duke a present of two newly made cricket bats and balls. Like so many of his contemporaries, Small's fame is based largely on the testimony paid to him by John Nyren in "The Cricketers of My Time". Small received high praise indeed for Nyren wrote that "(Small) shines among them (i.e., the Hambledon players) in all the lustre of a star of the first magnitude" (i.e., a superstar). His legacy is well summarised by a contemporary verse about him which, it is believed, he displayed on a sign outside his workshop in Petersfield: Here lives John Small, Makes bat and ball,Pitches a wicket, plays at cricketWith any man in England. In 1997, in an article in "The Times", former "Wisden Cricketers' Almanack" editor John Woodcock named Small in his "100 Greatest Cricketers of All Time".