James Smithson

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James Smithson

An 1816 portrait of Smithson by Henri-Joseph Johns, now in the National Portrait Gallery
of the Smithsonian Institution
Born 1765
Paris, France
Died 27 June 1829 (aged 64)
Genoa, Liguria
Nationality British
Fields Mineralogy and chemistry
Alma mater Pembroke College, University of Oxford
Known for Proving zinc carbonates are true carbonate minerals and not zinc oxides (1802); leaving a bequest in his will to the USA which was used to initially fund the Smithsonian Institution
Notable awards Fellow of the Royal Society (1787)
For related terms, see Smithsonian (disambiguation).

James Smithson, F.R.S., M.A. (1765 – 27 June 1829) was a British mineralogist and chemist noted for having left a bequest in his will to the United States of America, which was used to initially fund the Smithsonian Institution.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Not much is known about Smithson's life: his scientific collections, notebooks, diaries, and correspondence were lost in a fire that destroyed the Smithsonian Institution Building in 1865;[1] only the 213 volumes of his personal library and some personal writings survived.[2] Smithson was born in 1765 in Paris, France, an illegitimate, unacknowledged son of an English landowner, the highly regarded and accomplished Sir Hugh Smithson, 4th Baronet of Stanwick, north Yorkshire, who later changed his name to Hugh Percy, and became the 1st Duke of Northumberland, K.G.

A portrait of Smithson at the University of Oxford c.1786 by an unknown artist, which now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution.

James Smithson's mother was his father's mistress, Elizabeth Hungerford Keate, the daughter of John Keate, an uncle of George Keate (1729–1797) who was elected to the Royal Society in 1766. Elizabeth was an heiress of the Hungerfords of Studley.[3] She was also the widow of John Macie, of Weston, near Bath, Somerset; so the young Smithson originally was called Jacques Louis Macie. His mother later married John Marshe Dickinson, a troubled son of Marshe Dickinson who was Lord Mayor of the City of London in 1757 and Member of Parliament. During this marriage, she had another son; but the 1st Duke of Northumberland, rather than Dickinson, is thought to have been the father of this second son also.

Smithson commenced undergraduate studies at Pembroke College, University of Oxford,[4] in 1782 and received a Master of Arts (M.A.) degree in 1786 (he matriculated as Jacobus Ludovicus Macie). French geologist Barthélemy Faujas de Saint-Fond described him as a diligent young student, dedicated to scientific research, who had risked drowning to gather geological observations on a tour of the Hebrides Islands.[5]

On 19 April 1787, at age 22, under the name James Lewis Macie, he was elected the youngest fellow of the Royal Society,[1] of which he later became vice president.[3] When his mother died, in 1800, he and his brother inherited a sizable estate. Around 1802, he changed his surname from Macie to his father's surname, Smithson.[6]

Smithson died on 27 June 1829, in Genoa; his body was buried in the English cemetery of San Benigno there.[6] In 1904, Alexander Graham Bell, then Regent of the Smithsonian Institution, brought Smithson's remains from Genoa to Washington, D.C., where they were entombed at the Smithsonian Institution Building (The Castle).[7] His sarcophagus incorrectly states his age at his death as 75; he was 64.

[edit] Scientific career

A large sample of smithsonite from Tsumeb, Namibia, displayed in the Smithsonian Institution.

Smithson dedicated his life to investigating the natural world, and visited Florence, Paris, Saxony, and the Swiss Alps to find crystals and minerals on which he could perform experiments – including diluting, grinding, igniting, and even chewing and sniffing them – to discover and classify their elemental properties.[1] In 1802, Smithson proved that zinc carbonates were true carbonate minerals and not zinc oxides, as was previously thought.[2][8] One, zinc spar (ZnCO3), a type of zinc ore, was renamed smithsonite posthumously in Smithson's honour in 1832 by the noted French scientist[1] François Sulpice Beudant.[3] Smithsonite was a principal source of zinc until the 1880s. Smithson also invented the term silicate.[1]

Wherever he went, Smithson made minute observations on the climate, physical features, and geological structure of the locality visited, the characteristics of its minerals, the methods employed in mining or smelting ores, and in all kinds of manufactures. Desirous of bringing to the practical test of actual experiment everything that came to his notice, he fitted up and carried with him a portable laboratory. He collected also a cabinet of minerals, composed of thousands of minute specimens, including all the rarest gems, so that immediate comparison could be made of a novel or undetermined specimen with an accurately arranged and labelled collection.[3]

His first paper, presented to the Royal Society in 1791, was “An Account of some Chemical Experiments on Tabasheer,” and was followed from that time until 1817 with eight other memoirs treating for the most part of chemical analyses of various substances, principally minerals.[3] Smithson published at least 27 papers on chemistry, geology, and mineralogy in scientific journals. His topics included the chemical content of a lady's teardrop, the crystalline form of ice, and an improved method of making coffee.[2] He was acquainted with leading scientists of his day, including French mathematician, physicist and astronomer François Arago; Sir Joseph Banks; Henry Cavendish; Scottish geologist James Hutton; Irish chemist Richard Kirwan; Antoine Lavoisier and Joseph Priestley.[1][9]

[edit] The Smithsonian connection

James Smithson's tomb in the Smithsonian Castle

A shrewd investor, Smithson amassed a fortune in his lifetime.[1] On his death, Smithson's will left his fortune to his nephew, Henry James Dickinson, son of his brother who had died in 1820. Smithson had him change his name to Hungerford in the mid-1820s and in the will stipulated that if that nephew died without legitimate or illegitimate children, the money should go "to the United States of America, to found at Washington, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men."[10]

The nephew, Henry Hungerford (the soi disant Baron Eunice de la Batut), died without heirs in 1835, and Smithson's bequest was accepted in 1836 by the United States Congress. A lawsuit (in Britain) contesting the will was decided in favour of the U.S. in 1838 and 11 boxes containing 104,960 gold sovereigns[1] were shipped to Philadelphia and minted into dollar coinage worth $508,318. There was a good deal of controversy about how the purposes of the bequest could be fulfilled, and it was not until 1846 that the Smithsonian Institution was founded.

Smithson had never been to the United States, and the motive for the specific bequest is unknown. There is an unsourced tradition within the (existing) Percy family that it was to found an institution that would last longer than his father's dynasty.

On 18 September 1965, in the year of the bicentenary of Smithson's birth, the Smithsonian Institution awarded to the Royal Society a 14-ct. gold medal bearing a left-facing bust of Smithson.[11]

[edit] Ancestors

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Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2009)
Some of Smithson's ancestors
James Louis Macie Smithson Father:
Sir Hugh Smithson (Percy),1st Duke of Northumberland		 Paternal Grandfather:
Langdale Smithson
Sir Hugh Smithson,3rd Bart., of Stanwick, (1657-1733)

Hon. Elizabeth Langdale
Paternal Grandmother:
Philadelphia Reveley
William Reveley of Newby Wiske(1662-1725)

Margery Willey
Mother:
Elizabeth Hungerford Keate (1728-1800)		 Maternal Grandfather:
Lt. John Keate (1709-c1755)
John Keate

Frances Hungerford
Maternal Grandmother:
Penelope Fleming (c1711-1764)
Henry Fleming, DD, (1659-1728), Rector of Grasmere

Mary Fletcher

[edit] Notes

English Heritage plaque to Smithson at no. 9 Bentinck Street, Marylebone, London, unveiled on 25 September 2008
  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Colquhoun, Kate (2007-05-26). "A Very British Pioneer (review of Heather Ewing's The Lost World of James Smithson)". The Telegraph (Review). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2007/05/31/boewi26.xml. 
  2. ^ a b c "Who was James Smithson? : A Man of Science". Smithsonian Institution. http://www.sil.si.edu/Exhibitions/Smithson-to-Smithsonian/who_04.html. Retrieved 2007-06-18. 
  3. ^ a b c d e Wikisource-logo.svg "Smithson, James". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. 1900. 
  4. ^ A plaque commemorating Smithson's undergraduate days was erected at Broadgate Hall in Pembroke College by the Regents of the Smithsonian Institution in 1896. Its inscription reads: "JAMES SMITHSON -FRS- FOUNDER OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION – WASHINGTON. ERECTED BY THE REGENTS OF THE INSTITUTION 1896". A photograph of the plaque can be viewed on the Pembroke College website (retrieved on 19 June 2007).
  5. ^ "Who was James Smithson? : The Student Years". Smithsonian Institution. http://www.sil.si.edu/Exhibitions/Smithson-to-Smithsonian/who_02.html. Retrieved 2007-06-18. 
  6. ^ a b James Smithson on the Royal Society website. Retrieved on 18 June 2007.
  7. ^ "Who was James Smithson? : Smithson Leaves Bequest to the United States". Smithsonian Institution. http://www.sil.si.edu/Exhibitions/Smithson-to-Smithsonian/who_05.html. Retrieved 2007-06-18. 
  8. ^ See Smithson, James (1803), "A Chemical Analysis of Some Calamines", Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Pt. I, http://www.sil.si.edu/Exhibitions/Smithson-to-Smithsonian/calamine.html .
  9. ^ "Who was James Smithson? : A World of Scientific Ideals". Smithsonian Institution. http://www.sil.si.edu/Exhibitions/Smithson-to-Smithsonian/who_03.html. Retrieved 2007-06-18. 
  10. ^ A draft version of a transcript of Smithson's 1826 will may be viewed at the Smithsonian Institution's website (retrieved on 18 June 2007).
  11. ^ Reference no. M/215 in the Royal Society's collection: see the Royal Society's website, retrieved on 18 June 2007.

[edit] References

The plaque to Smithson just before its unveiling. Historian and Smithson biographer Heather Ewing speaks while the director of the Smithsonian Institution, Dr Julian Raby, looks on

[edit] Further reading

[edit] Articles

[edit] Books

  • Bello, Mark; William Schulz, Madeleine Jacobs & Alvin Rosenfeld (eds.) (1993). The Smithsonian Institution, a World of Discovery : An Exploration of Behind-the-Scenes Research in the Arts, Sciences, and Humanities. Washington, D.C.: Distributed by Smithsonian Institution Press for Smithsonian Office of Public Affairs. ISBN 1560983140. 
  • Bolton, Henry Carrington (1896). The Smithsonian Institution : Its Origin, Growth, and Activities. New York, N.Y.: [s.n.]. 
  • Burleigh, Nina (2003). The Stranger and the Statesman : James Smithson, John Quincy Adams, and the Making of America's Greatest Museum, The Smithsonian. New York, N.Y.: Morrow. ISBN 0-06-000241-7 (hbk.). 
  • Ewing, Heather (2007). The Lost World of James Smithson : Science, Revolution, and the Birth of the Smithsonian. [USA]: Bloomsbury. ISBN 1596910291 (hbk.). 
  • Goode, George Brown (ed.) (1897). The Smithsonian Institution, 1846–1896 : The History of its First Half Century. Washington, D.C.: [s.n.].  Reprinted as Goode, George Brown (ed.) (1980). The Smithsonian Institution, 1846–1896. New York, N.Y.: Arno Press. ISBN 0405125844. 
  • Gurney, Gene ([1964]). The Smithsonian Institution, a Picture Story of its Buildings, Exhibits, and Activities. New York, N.Y.: Crown. 
  • Karp, Walter ([1965]). The Smithsonian Institution; an Establishment for the Increase & Diffusion of Knowledge among Men. [Washington, D.C.]: Smithsonian Institution. 
  • Rhees, William Jones (comp. & ed.) (1901). The Smithsonian Institution : Documents Relative to its Origin and History, 1835–1889. Washington, D.C.: G.P.O.  Reprinted as Rhees, William Jones (ed.) (1980). The Smithsonian Institution, 1835–1899 (2 vols.). New York, N.Y.: Arno Press. ISBN 0405125836. 

[edit] External links

Search Wikisource Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Smithson, James.


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