James Smithson was an English scientist who provided funds for the founding of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C.
Background
James Smithson was born in France in 1765. He was the illegitimate son of Sir Hugh Percy, first duke of Northumberland, and Elizabeth Keate Macie, a wealthy widow and heiress of the Hungerfords of Studley. Little is known of Smithson's early life.
Education
He was educated and naturalized in England. At the age of 17, under the name James Lewis Macie, he entered Pembroke College, Oxford, where he became interested in science, particularly chemistry and mineralogy. He received an M. A. degree in 1786.
Career
He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, one of his sponsors being Henry Cavendish. He published a total of 27 scientific papers on his research, particularly analytical chemistry. Smithson's research work was eclectic. He studied subjects ranging from coffee making to the use of calamine, eventually renamed smithsonite, in making brass. He also studied the chemistry of human tears, snake venom and other natural occurrences. Smithson would publish twenty-seven papers. In 1826, in ill health, Smithson made his now-famous will. To his nephew, Henry James Hungerford, he bequeathed all his property for life, with the proviso that, should the nephew die without issue or heir, the estate should go "to the United States of America, to found at Washington under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an Establishment for the increase & diffusion of knowledge among men. " Smithson died in Genoa, Italy, on June 27, 1829. Six years later Hungerford died without heirs. The bequest, estimated at about $500, 000, reverted to the United States.
Achievements
Views
Quotations:
"I then bequeath the whole of my property, . . . to the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an Establishment for the increase & diffusion of knowledge among men. "
"It is in his knowledge that man has found his greatness and his happiness, the high superiority which he holds over the other animals who inhabit the earth with him, and consequently no ignorance is probably without loss to him, no error without evil. "
"The particle and the planet are subject to the same laws and what is learned of one will be known of the other. "
"It is in knowledge that man has found his greatness and his happiness. "
Personality
Smithson was nomadic in his lifestyle, travelling throughout Europe.