James Smithson

Uncommon card · No. 179934

James Smithson (c. 1765 – 27 June 1829) was a British chemist and mineralogist. He published numerous scientific papers for the Royal Society during the early 1800s as well as defining calamine, which would eventually be renamed after him as "smithsonite". He was the founding donor of the Smithsonian Institution, which also bears his name. Born in Paris, France, as the illegitimate child of Elizabeth Hungerford Keate Macie and Hugh Percy (born Hugh Smithson), the 1st Duke of Northumberland, he was given the French name Jacques-Louis Macie. His birth date was not recorded and the exact location of his birth is unknown; it is possibly in the Pentemont Abbey. Shortly after his birth, he naturalised in Britain, where his name was anglicised to James Louis Macie. He adopted his father's original surname of Smithson in 1800, following his mother's death. He attended university at Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1782, eventually graduating with a Master of Arts in 1786. As a student he participated...

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