James Smithson

For related terms, see Smithsonian (disambiguation).

James Smithson, FRS, MA (1765 – June 27, 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 fund the Smithsonian Institution.

Biography

James Smithson was the illegitimate son of Sir Hugh Smithson, later known as Sir Hugh Percy, Baronet, 1st Duke of Northumberland, K.G., and Elizabeth Hungerford Keate, and was born in 1765 in France. Elizabeth Keate had been married to James Macie, and so the name Smithson first bore was James Lewis Macie. His mother later married Mark Dickinson, by whom she had another son.

Smithson was educated at Pembroke College, Oxford, receiving a Master of Arts degree in 1786. In 1787 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. When his mother died in 1800, he and his half-brother inherited a sizable estate. He changed his name at this time from "Macie" to "Smithson."

Smithson died in 1829, in the Italian city of Genoa, and his body was interred in a tomb in the Protestant Cemetery there.

Scientific career

In 1802, Smithson proved that zinc carbonates were true carbonate minerals and not zinc oxides, as was previously thought. One, calamine (a type of zinc ore), was renamed smithsonite posthumously in Smithson's honor in 1832. Smithsonite was a principal source of zinc until the 1880s.

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.

The Smithsonian connection

On his death, James Smithson's will left his fortune to his nephew, son of his half-brother, but stipulated that if that nephew died without children (legitimate or illegitimate), 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.

The nephew, Henry Hungerford Dickinson, 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 the favor of the United States in 1838 and eleven boxes of gold sovereigns 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.

James 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. It is also said that he hated the British monarchy system (perhaps because he was unable to continue his family's title of nobility) and liked the US's revolutionary spirit. He also lived in France for a while during their revolution.

In 1904, Alexander Graham Bell, at that time Regent of the Smithsonian, brought Smithson's remains from Genoa to Washington, where they were re-interred in a tomb at the Smithsonian Building (The Castle). His sarcophogus incorrectly states his age at his death - it says 75; he was in fact only 64.

Sources

Smithsonian Institution, Who was James Smithson?. Web article, retrieved 13:30 January 27 2005 UTC.

External links

Portrait of James Smithson