SMITHSON, JAMES LOUIS MACIE

(b. Paris, France, 1765: d. Genoa, Italy, 27 June 1829)

chemistry.

Smithson was the illegitimate son of Hugh Smithson Percy, first duke of Northumberland and Elizabeth Hungerford Keate Macie, who was the widow of James Macie, a country gentlemen of Bath, England. While pregnant, his mother had gone to Paris, where Smithson was born in born in 1765; but no record has been found of the exact date of birth. Until the age of thirty-six he was known as James Louis Macie. He took the surname Smithson on 16 February 1801. Upon the death of his mother in 1800, James acquired a small fortune, which enabled him to support his researches and extensive travels.

At the age of ten, Smithson returned to England with his mother, where he was naturalized a British subject; but a provision was made at the time that he could not hold public office (civil or military) or have any grant of land from the crown. On 7 May 1782 he entered Pembroke College, Oxford, and subsequently took his master of his master of arts on 26 May 1786, He was attracted to the study of chemistry and mineralogy, and having been sponsored by Kirwan and Cavendish, he became a fellow of the Royal Society on 26 April 1787. He also may have worked in the private laboratory of Cavendish at that time.

Smithson read his first paper before the Royal Society on 7 July 1791. The paper concenernd a study of the chemical properties of tahasheer, a substance found in bamboo. He also was listed as a charter member of the Royal Institution. His most important work, “A Chemical Analysis of Some Calamines,” was read before the Royal Sociely on 18 November 1802 and published Philosophical Transactions. He analyzed zinc ores from various European deposits and showed to be primarily zinc carbonate. Since his analytical techniques were creditable, and as a result study, the mineral zinc carbonate was named smithzonite in his honor. Smithson published twentty-seven papers on chemical subjects in the Philosophical Transactions and the Annals of Philosophy, but his importance as a chemist is minimal.

Smithson is remembered chiefly because he left money for founding the Smithsonian Institution Washington, D.C On 23 October 1826 Smithson prepared his will, according to which he left his estate to Henry James Hungerford, his nephew. There was the following stipulation:

In the case of the death of my said Nephew without leaving a child or children, or the death child or children he may have had under the age of twenty-one years or intestate, I then bequeath the whole of my property subject to the Annuity of One Hundred pounds to John Fitall, & for the security & payment of which I mean Stock to remain in this Country, to the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian lnstitution. an Establishment for the increase & diffusion of knowledge among men.

On 27 June 1829 James Smithson died in Genoa. at the age of sixty-four; his estate passed to his nephew. On 5 June 1835 the nephew died it without heire, and the United States Government was notified of its claim to the estate. The claim prosecuted, and within three years the estate. Which amounted to $508,318.46, was shipped to the United States Mint at Philadelphia. It was not until 10 August 1846 that Congress agreed to the disposition of the money and the founding of the Smithsonian Institution. This delay was due to disagreement among Congressional leaders as to the nature of the proposed institution. Among the schemes suggested were an observatory, a library, a university, and a museum. On 3 December 1846 Joseph Henry was elected the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, and he guided its develop shy;ment as primarily a scientific institution.

In 1904 the remains of James Smithson were brought to Washington from Genoa and interred in the Original Smithsonian building.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Much of the papers, personal library. and mineral collections of James Smithson, which were brought to the United States and housed in Smithsonian Institution, were destroyed in a fire of 1865 His twenty-seven published scientific papers were edited by William J. Rhees and published in 1879 by the Smithsonian Institution; see Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, 21 (1881).

II. Secondary Literature. Many of the details of Smithson’s life have been documented by biographers, but much of his life remains unrecorded. Some of the notable biographical sketches include Leonard Carmichael and.J. C, Long, James Smithson and the Smithson Story (New York. 1965): Samuel P. Langley, “Biographical Sketch of James Smithson,” in George Brown Goode, ed., The Smithsonian Institution 1846–1896, the History of lts First Half-Century (Washington, D.C., 1897). 1–24: Paul H. Oehser, Sons of Science (New York. 1949), 1–25; and W. J. Rhees, James Smithson and His Bequest (Washington. D.C. 1880), also in Smithsonian Micelaneous Collections, 21 (1881).

Daniel P. Jones