SMITHSON, James, founder of the Smith sonian Institution at Washington: b. Weston, Super-Mare, Somerset, England, about 1765; d. Genoa, Italy, 27 June 1829. His mother at the time of his birth was the widow of James Macie, a country gentleman of an old family. Smithson describes himself in his final will as "son to Hugh, first Duke of Northum berland, and Elizabeth, heiress of the Hunger fords of Studley, niece to Charles the Proud, Duke of Somerset." Smithson seems himself to have observed no reticence about what he thought the true facts of his birth, but the name of Macie appears to have been imposed upon him from his youth by his parents and his feeling that he must create for himself a posi tion which his birth had denied him is per haps a reason for his subsequent bequest to the United States of the means which founded the institution bearing his name which he had later assumed and which was the family name of Sir Hugh Smithson, the first Duke of Northumberland. It cannot but be supposed that something of this kind was in his mind when he wrote "My name shall live in the memory of man when the titles of the North umberlands and the Percys are extinct and for gotten." Nothing material is remembered of his life at Oxford, where he entered under the name of Macie as a gentleman commoner in 1782, though he appears to have been partly occupied in chemistry, which was the scientific interest of his later life, and this at a time when the study of physical science was almost unknown in the university. He was graduated at Pembroke College with the degree of master of arts in 1786 and was admitted as a Fellow of the Royal Society in the following year on the recom mendation of Cavendish and other eminent fellows of the Society. Smithson published in all 27 scientific papers, eight in the Philosophical Transactions between 1791 and 1807, one in the Philosophical Magazine and 18 in 'Thompson's Annals of Philosophy' between 1819 and 1825.
Prof. F. W. Clarke gives the following view of the value of Smithson's scientific work: "To theory Smithson contributed little, if anything; but from a theoretical point of view the tone of his writings is singularly modern. His work was mostly done before Dalton had announced the atomic theory and yet Smithson saw clearly that a law of definite proportions must 'exist, although he did not attempt to ac count for it. His ability as a reasoner is best shown in his paper upon the Kirkdale bone cave which Penn had sought to interpret by reference to the Noachian deluge. A clearer and more complete demolition of Penn's views could hardly be written to-day. Smithson was gentle with his adversary, but none the less thorough for all his moderation. He is not to be classed among the leaders of scientific thought; but his ability and the usefulness of his contributions to knowledge, cannot be doubted? An important ore of zinc was named Smith sonite after him.
That he held a high place among his con temporaries is evident from the fact that the president of the Royal Society in a necrology for the year 1829 associated the name of Smith son with those of Wollaston, Young and Davy, saying that °he was distinguished by the inti mate friendship of Mr. Cavendish and rivaled our most expert chemists in elegant analyses." He was, then, most noted in this connection, and exhibited an industry the more creditable to him, since he was at this time a man of large means. Of Smithson's later life little is known, but his declining years appear to have been tried by painful infirmities. He lived in these years principally in Paris and Genoa and one gathers from his letters and from the uniform consideration with which he speaks of others and from kind traits which he showed, the impression of an innately gentle nature, but also of a man who was renouncing, not without bit terness, the youthful hope of fame.
Smithson's will, dated from London 23 Oct. 1826, is a brief document leaving his property to a nephew and in the case of the death of the nephew without leaving a child, he adds : "I then bequeath the whole of my •property to the United States of America to found at Washing ton, under the name of the Smithsonian Insti tution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men." The will was proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, the value of the effects being sworn to be not over f120,000, a sum much larger in relative importance at the time than it would be now. The money appears to have come from his mother's family; there is, at least, no indication that any portion whatever of the Smithson bequest was derived from his Northumberland ancestry. It is not definitely ascertained why Smithson made the United States his legatee, in which he is not known to have had any correspondent or friend.
Smithson was buried in the little English cemetery on the heights of San Benigno, the remains and monuments in which are now being removed by the Italian government to another location. The regents of the Smithsonian Insti tution, who had caused a tablet to be erected to him in the cemetery and in the church, oh the removal of the cemetery, appointed one of their number, Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, to bring the remains from Genoa to Washington, where they arrived in the early part of 1904 and were later interred on the grounds of the Smith sonian Institution. Consult Rhees, 'James Smithson and His Bequest' (in Vol. XXI, Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections); Lang ley,