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JAMES SMITHSON (1765-1829)

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Originally appearing in Volume V25, Page 273 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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JAMES SMITHSON (1765-1829)  ,
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British chemist and mineralogist and founder of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, a natural son of
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Hugh Smithson, 1st duke of Northumberland, by Mrs Elizabeth Keate Macie, a granddaughter of
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Sir George Hungerford of Studley, was born in France in 1765 . He was educated at Pembroke College, Oxford, where he graduated in 1786, and was known in early
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life as James Lewis (or Louis) Macie . He took the name of James Smithson about the
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year 1800 . His attention was given to chemistry and
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mineralogy, and he published analyses of calamines and other papers in the Annals of , Philosophy and Phil: Trans . The
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mineral name smithsonite " was originally given in his honour by Beudant to
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zinc carbonate, but having also been applied to the silicate, the name is now rarely used . In 1784 he accompanied Faujas St Fond in his journey to the Western Isles, and in the
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English
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translation of the Travels in England, Scotland and the Hebrides (1799) Smithson is spoken of as " M. de Mecies of
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London." He was elected F.R.S. in 1787 . He died at Genoa on the 27th of
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June 1829 . By his will he bequeathed upwards of £1oe,eoo to the
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United States of
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America to 'found the Smithsonian Institution . The institution (see below) was founded by act of Congress on the loth of August 1846 . " See " James Smithson and his Bequest (with portraits), by W . J . Rhees, and " The Scientific Writings of James Smithson," edited by W .

J . Rhees, Smithsonian Misc .

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Coll., vol. xxi . (1879 188o) .

End of Article: JAMES SMITHSON (1765-1829)
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