The Lost World of James Smithson

by Heather Ewing

  12 Smithson's address as West Haugh, Surrey, is from the records of the Society for Promoting Natural History (SPNH), Linnean Society. Hoare's Bank records have an undated address listing for "Macie, Mrs Eliz.th at Westhall near Mortlake Sury" in addition to her in-town address. John Guillemard described Smithson's mother as "Elizabeth Macie of Eastwick Park in the County of Surrey, Widow," suggesting that she may have also rented Eastwick Manor in Great Bookham, Surrey, at some point. Guillemard to Richard Rush, July 14, 1837; Rush Family Papers, Princeton.

  13 Thomson to Black, August 28, 1784; EUL Gen 873/II/184–5.

  14 Records of the SPN are located in the archives of the Linnean Society in Burlington House, London. I am grateful to Hugh Torrens for alerting me to Smithson's connection with this group.

  15 Smithson owned William Bray, A Sketch of a Tour into Derbyshire and Yorkshire (1783), which was probably purchased for this trip; Smithson marked a number of items of interest, including the china manufactory at Derby. Smithson Library, SIL.

  16 Thomson to Black, November 15, 1784; EUL Gen 873/II/160–1.

  17 Faujas, A Journey, vol. 1, pp. 125, 130.

  18 Faujas, A Journey, vol. 1, p. 135.

  19 Faujas, A Journey, vol. 1, p. 134.

  20 Daniel Preston, "Thornton, William," American National Biography Online (February 2000). Discussion of America in Pembroke deduced from Adams' correspondence with Richard Price, author of Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution; Faujas, A Journey, vol. 1, p. 156.

  21 The Works of Samuel Johnson (London, 1820). Smithson Library, SIL.

  22 Rev. Theophilus Lindsey in 1770; marveled at seeing daily upwards of two hundred pairs of hands widening the river and renovating the chapel; Lindsey to Francis, tenth Earl of Huntington, September 4, 1770. HMC Report on MMS of the late Reginald Rawdon Hastings, vol. Ill, pp. 149–50. The gilded nails in the stable were noted by Alexandre de la Rochefoucauld; Norman Scarfe, To the Highlands in 1786: The Inquisitive Journey of a Young French Aristocrat (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2001), pp. 88–92.

  23 Louis Dutens, Mémoires d'un voyageur qui se repose (London, 1807), vol. 1, p. 108; Smithson Library, SIL. The duke increased the rent rolls at Alnwick sixfold. Eileen Harris, The Interiors of Robert Adam (2001), pp. 84–93.

  24 Alnwick MSS, Northumberland Misc., Syon: Corr of 1st Duke, 1758–1785, G/1/16. The quotation of the two men landing almost as naked as the trees comes from a letter written the following day by Jeffries to a Mr. Thayer c/o Mr. Fector, Dover, a copy of which was also sent to the Duke, and is G/l/17.

  25 Jan Golinski, Science as Public Culture (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 11–15.

  26 At Oxford Martin Wall, William Thomson, and Thomas Beddoes had all studied with Black. Others were Smithson Tennant at Cambridge; Thomas Garnett, the first chemistry lecturer at the Andersonian Institution in Glasgow and then at the Royal Institution in London; and in the new world, Benjamin Rush, who founded a chemical school in Philadelphia (and whose son, Richard, half a century later, would be the one to pursue the Smithson bequest on behalf of the United States). Andrew Kent, ed., An Eighteenth Century Lectureship in Chemistry (Glasgow, 1950), p. 46. For Brougham's comment on Black, see J. G. Crowther, Scientists of the Industrial Revolution (London, 1962), pp. 48–9.

  27 Louis Macie to Joseph Black, February 27, 1785; EUL Gen 873/II/252–3.

  28 James Smithson, "Note to a letter from Dr. Black, describing a very sensible balance," Annals of Philosophy (1825), p. 52.

  29 Crowther, Scientists of the Industrial Revolution, p. 82.

  30 Faujas, A Journey, vol. 1, p. 223.

  31 For Hazlitt see Fiona J. Stafford, '"Dangerous Success': Ossian, Wordsworth, and English Romantic Literature," in Howard Gaskill, ed., Ossian Revisited (Edinburgh University Press, 1991) p. 49. For Napoleon, see W. Jackson Bate, Samuel Johnson (New York and London, 1977) p. 520. See also Paul Van Tieghem, Ossian en France (1917), p. 365, and Fiona J. Stafford, Sublime Savage: A Study of James MacPherson and the Poems of Ossian (Edinburgh University Press, 1988). And for Jefferson see Jefferson to C. McPherson, February 25, 1773; quoted in Paul J. Degategno, '"The Source of Daily and Exalted Pleasure': Jefferson reads the Poems of Ossian," in Gaskill, ed., Ossian Revisited, pp. 98–9.

  32 Faujas, A Journey, vol. 1, p. 236.

  33 Ian G. Lindsay and Mary Cosh, Inveraray and the Dukes of Argyll (Edinburgh, 1973), pp. 221–5. Thanks to Hugh Torrens for directing my attention to this reference. Faujas, A Journey, vol. 1, pp. 241–54.

  34 Information based on a letter Smithson sent to Greville, recounting the adventure, now lost. Greville to Hamilton, n.d. [1784]; printed in The Hamilton and Nelson Papers (London, 1893–4), pp. 91–2.

  35 Faujas, A Journey, vol. 1, pp. 310–11.

  36 Faujas, A Journey, vol. 1, p. 315.

  37 Charles Greville to William Hamilton, n.d. [1784].

  38 Faujas, A Journey, vol. 2, p. 63. Most of the prominent families in the area carried the name Maclean. The one in Torloisk was Lachlan Maclean, who lived until 1799, and dined with Boswell in Edinburgh in 1775; Boswell, Life of Johnson, George Birkbeck Hill and V. F. Powell, eds, vol. 2, p. 308.

  39 This quotation and the ones by Smithson in the following paragraphs are from W. R. Johnson, "A Memoir on the Scientific Character and Researches of james Smithson, Esq., F. R. S.," (Philadelphia, 1844). Some aspects of this story will probably remain unclear. The dating in Faujas' book is very inexact, but it seems likely that the three travelers (together or separately) arrived at Maclean's around September 21, but did not leave for Staffa until the 24th. Smithson wrote to Greville that he had gotten ahead of the others and landed first on Staffa; he left Torloisk at 11.30 a.m. on the 24th, according to his diary. According to Faujas (who admittedly was not present), the other two left at 5.00 a.m. on the 24th, which would have meant they arrived at Staffa well before Smithson. When Smithson resolved to stay the night, he mentioned that a "Mr. Maclaire stays with me;" it is likely that this is a misreading by Johnson of Smithson's spelling of Maclaine [Maclean]; we know from Greville that Maclean's nephew accompanied Smithson to Staffa. Faujas' narrative is in A Journey, Vol. 2, pp. 18–25.

  40 W. Daniell, Illustrations of the Island of Staffa (London, 1818), pp. 10–11.

  41 Smithson's diary excerpt from W. R. Johnson, "A Memoir.', Faujas noted that Smithson's friend William Thomson, who had been on the island in 1782, had made "a very interesting collection of zeolites, and among others, a number of large cubic crystals clustered upon a black compact lava … the most considerable and the most perfect [specimen] of its kind." Faujas, A Journey, vol. 2, p. 60. Greville to Hamilton, n.d. [1784]. James Smithson, "On the Composition of Zeolite," Philosophical Transactions 101 (1811).

  42 See Url Lanham, The Bone Hunters (Columbia University Press, 1973), p. 35. Thanks to Raymond Rye for sharing this anecdote with me.

  43 Information from Nigel Bishop, Kilmadock Development Trust. Correspondence with the author, 2004.

  44 Louis Macie to Joseph Black, February 27, 1785; EUL, Gen 873/II/252–3.

  45 Diary excerpt from W. R. Johnson, "A Memoir." Another contemporary account of descending the mines is found in Norman Scarfe, Innocent Espionage: The La Rochefoucauld Brothers' Tour of England in 1785 (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1995), pp. 84–6.

  46 Cheshire Magazine, October 1, 2002.

  47 William Thornton to F. X. Swediaur, n.d. [1784], C. M. Harris, ed., Papers of William Thornton (Charlottesville, 1995), vol. 1, pp. 16–20.

  48 Blagden to Banks, October 17, 1784; DTC, vol. 4, ff. 75–6. Banks to Blagden, October 26, 1784, Blagden Papers, BLA.b.32, Royal Society.

  49 Dryander to Banks, October 21, 1784; DTC, vol. 4, p. 79.

  50 Blagden to Banks, October 17, 1784; DTC, vol. 4, pp. 75–6. Curiously, Blagden is listed as the Royal Society member who took Smithson as his guest on August 12, 1784, shortly before Faujas' group departed for Staffa; he does not seem here to have any recollection of the event. He did later become one of Smithson's
sponsors for membership in 1787, but they do not seem ever to have been good friends.

  51 Donald B. MacCulloch, Staffa (Newton Abbot, 1975), especially pp. 29, 99, 157–62.

  4. London: Science Like Fire, 1784–1788

  1 G. Keate, An Account of the Pelew Islands, Karen L. Nero and Nicholas Thomas, eds (London and New York, 2002), p. 259.

  2 James C. McKusick, '"That Silent Sea': Coleridge, Lee Boo, and the Exploration of the South Pacific," The Wordsworth Circle 24 (1993), pp. 102–6.

  3 Nicholas Thomas, '"The Pelew Islands' in British Culture," in An Account of the Pelew Islands, pp. 27–39.

  4 Fanny Burney described meeting Keate: "He is an author, comme il faut; for he is in affluent circumstances, and writes at his leisure and for his amusement." Annie Raine Ellis, ed., The Early Diary of Frances Bumey, 1768–1778 (London, 1907), vol. 1, pp. 305–7. For Keate's biography, see Haydn Mason, "Keate, George (1729–1797)," Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004), and Katherine Gilbert Dapp, George Keate, esq., eighteenth-century English gentleman (Philadelphia, 1939). For an account of the museum, see Clive Wainwright, "The 'Distressed Poet' and his architect: George Keate and Robert Adam," Apollo (January 1996), vol. 143, no. 407, pp. 39–44.

  5 In Smithson's collection of books, the two volumes of james Anderson's Letters to Sir Joseph Banks, 1788 and 1789, are both inscribed from the author to Keate; Smithson Library, SIL.

  6 Dapp, George Keate, p. 2.

  7 Smithson, in one of his handwritten mineral catalogues (part of the small collection of mineralogical notes that survived the fire of 1865), described "a single mackle of the white feldspar of Dauphiné called by the French Schoerl blanc. I detached it from a large group given to me by Mr. Keate." Keate evidently presented Smithson with a large and probably very beautiful cabinet specimen; Smithson detached a single crystal, illustrative of the properties of the mineral, for his scientific cabinet. SIA, RU 7000, Box 2.

  8 Davies Giddy diary, November 17, 1791, note of 1838, quoted in A. C. Todd, Beyond the Blaze: A Biography of Davies Gilbert (Truro, 1967), p. 207.

  9 Election certificate for Sir Hugh Smithson, EC/1736/04, Royal Society Archives. See also Maurice Crosland, "Explicit Qualifications as a Criterion for Membership of the Royal Society: A Historical Review," Notes and Records of the Royal Society 37 (1983): 167–87.

  10 Sandford's election certificate at the Royal Society Archives is Ref. No. EC/1786/02. While George Keate could very well have come to know Sandford through his young cousin Smithson, it is also likely that Mary Delany played a hand in bringing the Pembroke student to Keate's attention. Delany was Sandford's godmother and actively promoted his advancement. For biographical information see Joseph Foster, Alumni Oxonienses: the members of the University of Oxford, 1715— 1886, 4 vols (Oxford, 1891).

  11 Paolo Andreani, Diario di Viaggio di un Gentiluomo Milanese, Parigi-Londra 1784 (Milan, 1975), pp. 82–3. Sir Joseph Banks wrote to George Leonard Staunton on February 24, 1793: "The Royal Society blackballed Count Andreani for a suspicion of republican principles which I believe was ill founded & I am verily of the opinion that if Sir Isaac Newton had held Republican Language that all the influence I have could not procure him three votes as a Fellow." RS Archives, MM XIX 120, printed in George Thomas Staunton, Memoir of the Life and Family of Sir G. L. Staunton (Havant, 1823), pp. 351–3.

  12 Roy Porter, Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World (London, 2000), pp. 34–8. See also David Barnett, London, Hub of the Industrial Revolution, A Revisionist History 1775–1825 (London and New York, 1998).

  13 Bachard Altick, The Shows of London (Cambridge, MA, and London, 1978), pp. 82, 121–4.

  14 Weeks' Museum, A Description of the Temples (London, 18—). William Bullock, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Exhibition, entitled Ancient and Modem Mexico … (London, 1824). "Murder Most Foul," Trial of Charles Squire & Hannah his wife, at Stafford Lent Assizes, 1799 … (1799). Smithson Library, SIL.

  15 J. L. Macie to James Hutton, January 17, 1788; Packet J (J7), Perceval Bequest, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge University.

  16 Smithson's bank ledgers are at Hoare's. Payments from Charles Vere, a banker and "chinaman" who died in 1789, appear to relate to property in Exhall; an abstract to the title is found in the Coventry Archives, PA 171/14/13. Smithson was also receiving regular payments from Apsley Pellatt, related to his ownership of the mortgage of Pellatt's property in Lewes, which his mother had purchased in 1776 and assigned to him in 1786; East Sussex Record Office, Add MS, Catalogue X, Ref. AMSX.

  17 Lottery tickets were returnable, like today's savings bonds, with the added benefit of the chance of a prize. The odds of winning were close to 25 per cent. Geoffrey Grant, English State Lotteries 1964–1826: a history and collector's guide to the tickets and shares (London, 2001), pp. 8, 19.

  18 The only evidence of Smithson living here is the letter he wrote to Joseph Black of February 27, 1785, written from No. 18 Portland Place; Macie to Black, February 27, 1785; EUL, Gen 873/II/252–3. Although it does not conclusively prove that Smithson was living there at the time he was pleased to boast of an affiliation with the address. 1785 is before the city directories really come into their own; rate books, too, yield owner rather than tenant, so it is difficult to confirm Smithson's association with this particular address.

  19 Z. [Anonymous], "James Smithson," Biographie Universelle Ancienne et Modeme 39 (Bad Feilnbach, 1998; facsimile of 1854–6 edition), pp. 488–9.

  20 Louis Simond, An American in Regency England: The Journal of a Tour in 1810–1811, Christopher Hibbert, ed. (London, 1968), p. 32.

  21 "An Abstract of such Resolutions and Precedents as relate to the constitution of the Philosophical Society," March 14, 1788; Wedgwood-Mosley MSS 1109, Keele University. I'm very grateful to Hugh Torrens for sharing this document.

  22 Peter Clark, British Clubs and Societies, 1580–1800: The Origins of an Associational World (Oxford, 2000), p. 246–251.

  23 Peter Clark, British Clubs, pp. 108–9.

  24 Records of the SPNH, Linnean Society.

  25 William Withering, "Experiments and Observations on the Terra Ponderosa," Philosophical Transactions 74 (1784), pp. 293–311. Adair Crawford's work quoted in Larry Stewart, "Putting on Airs," in Trevor Levere and Gerard L'E. Turner, eds, Discussing Chemistry and Steam: The Minutes of a Coffee House Philosophical Society, 1780–87 (Oxford, 2002), p. 233. William Thomson to Joseph Black, November 15, 1784; EUL, Gen 873/II/160–1. In February 1785 Smithson wrote to Black: "I was not as successful in my expedition to Leadhills as I expected to have been. Mr [St?]enting was not there, the weather was extremely bad, &c, so that I got but very few things, & them but midehng [sic], but the principal aim of my journey thither had been to procure some of the peculiar Terra Ponderosa Aerata and Phosphorated Lead, which you had mentioned to me, of the first I got none, and of the latter but one very bad specimen." Louis Macie to Joseph Black, February 27, 1785; EUL Gen 873/11/252–53.

  26 Martin Klaproth, Observations relative to the mineralogical and chemical history of the fossils of Cornwall (London, 1787). Smithson wrote in the front flap: "From the translator." Smithson Library, SIL.

  27 Black to Smithson, September 18, 1790; printed in Annals of Philosophy (1825) reprinted in the Technical Repository (1826).

  28 Buttery Books, Pembroke College Archives, Oxford.

  29 Jackson's Oxford Journal 1690, iii (85:253e).

  30 Larry Stewart, "Putting on Airs," in Discussing Chemistry and Steam, p. 230.

  31 E. G. W. Bill, Education at Christ Church Oxford, 1660–1800 (Oxford, 1988), p. 318.

  32 John Davy, Memoirs of the Life of Sir Humphry Davy, Bart., vol. 1 (London, 1836), p. 222; quoted in Christa Jungnickel and Russell McCormmach, Cavendish: The Experimental Life (Lewisburg, PA, 1999), p. 511.

  33 March 9, 1786; Minute Book of Royal Society Club, p. 8; Royal Society Archives. Sir Archibald Geikie, Annals of the Royal Society Club: The Record of a London Dining
-Club in the Eighteenth & Nineteenth Centuries (London, 1917), p. 71.

  34 E. L. Scott, "Kirwan, Richard (1733–1812)," Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004). M. Donovan, "Biographical Account of the late Richard Kirwan," Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 4 (1847–50), pp. 81–118.

  35 Discussing Chemistry and Steam, p. 157. For discussion of the CHPS see essays by Jan Golinski and Larry Stewart in The Minutes of a Coffee House Philosophical Society, 1780–87 and also the chapter "Priestley and the English Enlightenment" in Golinski's Science as Public Culture: Chemistry and Enlightenment in Britain, 1760–1820 (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 50–90.

  36 Golinski, "Conversations on Chemistry: Talk about Phlogiston in the Coffee House Society, 1780–87," in Discussing Chemistry and Steam (2002), especially pp. 192, 198.

  37 Magellan was also very interested in mineralogy, and in the 1780s he was producing a new two-volume English edition of Cronstedt's Essay on Mineralogy. Smithson kept both Mendes da Costa's 1770 edition and Magellan's 1788 edition in his library, each heavily annotated. Interestingly, Smithson's copy of Magellan's Cronstedt is inscribed "James Smithson, 1788." He was of course James Louis Macie in 1788; this backdating may have been done to show that he had purchased it immediately upon publication, or it could possibly be an early example of him toying with the idea of changing his name. Smithson Library, SIL.

  38 Benjamin Franklin to Magellan, January 24, 1786; B F58X Franklin Miscellaneous Collection (APS). Thanks to Rob Cox for his assistance with this query.

  39 Bryant Lillywhite, London Coffee Houses (London, 1963), pp. 106–7.

  40 Quotes from the minutes of the meetings April 14, April 28, and May 12, 1786; Discussing Chemistry and Steam, pp. 160–64.

  41 The April 1786 meeting was held at Greenwood's in Leicester Square. Soon after, that group—which was struggling to maintain a quorum at meetings—moved again to Leicester House, the commanding house at the head of the square, which had once served as the home of George II and now housed Ashton Lever and his vast museum of curiosities, the Holophusikon. Eventually the SPNH gained its own dedicated quarters on Golden Square. SPNH files, Linnean Society.