- 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.
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..
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 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,[3] 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.[4]
On 19 April 1787, at age 22, under the name James Lewis Macie, he was elected the youngest fellow of the Royal Society.[1] 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.[5]
Smithson died on 27 June 1829, in Genoa; his body was buried in the English cemetery of San Benigno there.[5] 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).[6] His sarcophagus incorrectly states his age at his death as 75; he was 64.
Scientific career
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][7] One, zinc spar (ZnCO3), a type of zinc ore, was renamed smithsonite posthumously in Smithson's honour in 1832 by a French scientist.[1] Smithsonite was a principal source of zinc until the 1880s. Smithson also invented the term silicate.[1]
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][8]
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."[9]
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.[10]
Ancestors
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 |
Notes
English Heritage plaque to Smithson at no. 9 Bentinck Street, Marylebone, London, unveiled on 25 September 2008
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
Further reading
Articles
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.
External links
