34 Quoted in Madge Pickard, "Government and Science," p. 468. See also Rhees, Documents, pp. 276–319.
35 Rhees, Documents, pp. 335–49.
36 Robert Owen, Millennial Gazette (London, May 15, 1856), pp. 21–3; copy in SIA, RU 7000, Box 4.
37 Rhees, Documents, p. 428.
38 August 10, 1846, diary entry, quoted in Wilcomb E. Washburn, The Great Design: Two Lectures on the Smithson Bequest by John Quincy Adams (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1965), p. 28.
39 The account of the first years of the Smithsonian is superbly told in the introductions to The Papers of Joseph Henry, vols 6 and 7. I am very grateful to Kathy Dorman and Marc Rothenberg of the Henry Papers tor their discussions with me.
40 Henry to Alexander Dallas Bache, September 5, 1846; The Papers of Joseph Henry, vol. 6, p. 494.
41 His close friend and advocate Alexander Dallas Bache, on the board of regents, assured him that the position of secretary would be "most favorable for carrying out your great designs in regard to American science. … Come you must for your country's sake." Bache to Henry, December 4, 1846; Papers of Joseph Henry, vol. 6, pp. 587–8.
42 Smithsonian Annual Report of 1872, p. 8.
43 Pamela M. Henson, "A National Science and a National Museum," Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences, vol. 55, supplement 1, no. 3, pp. 45–6.
44 Robert H. Bremmer, American Philanthropy (Chicago, 1988), pp. 49–51.
45 Levi Woodbury, "The Remedies for Certain Defects in American Education," in The Writings of Levi Woodbury (Boston, 1852), vol. 3, p. 73.
46 Details on the residual legacy are contained in Rhees, James Smithson & His Bequest, p. 24; Rhees, Documents, pp. 126–7. The U.S. consul in Genoa, looking over the history of the Smithson bequest in 1904, wrote to Smithsonian Secretary Samuel P. Langley: "Have you happened to notice, by the way … what a good thing the Smithsonian chanced to make out of the trust sum …? Thus the La Batuts have not been an unmixed evil." William Henry Bishop to Langley, July 16, 1904. SIA, RU 7000, Box 6.
47 Emma Kerby de la Batut to General Noyes, U.S. minister in Paris, February 28, 1881; SIA, RU 7000, Box 6. The translations of this and other La Batut letters were done at the Smithsonian in the nineteenth century.
48 Thomas Donaldson to Langley, April 16, 1893. SIA, RU 7000, Box 4.
49 La Batut's letter to the Smithsonian was dated February 9, 1879; it and other La Batut material, including nineteenth-century English translations, are located in SIA RU 7000, Box 4.
50 Melville Bell Grosvenor, "How James Smithson came to rest in the institution he never knew," Smithsonian Magazine (January 1976), pp. 30–35.
51 Robert V. Bruce, Bell: Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude (Cornell University Press, 1990), pp. 362, 376–7. Alexander Graham Bell to Edwin A. Grosvenor, February 1, 1904; Container 285, Bell Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (LC).
52 Copies of the editorial are located in SIA, RU 7000, Box 7.
53 Bell notes on Eden Palace Hotel, Genoa, paper, December 30, 1903; LC, Bell Papers, Container 287.
54 SIA, RU 7000, Box 6.
55 Bell recounted all the difficulties to Langley, February 10, 1904; a copy of the letter is in SIA, RU 7000, Box 7. Regarding the removal of the tomb itself, see Bell to J. B. Henderson, July 27, 1904; and other letters in RU 7000, Box 7.
56 William Henry Bishop to Alexander Graham Bell, February 17, 1904; LC, Bell Papers, Container 285.
57 Bell diary, December 31, 1903; LC, Bell Papers, Container 287.
58 The Princess Irene was met by the U.S. dispatch boat Dolphin as it was coming into harbor at Hoboken, New Jersey; Smithson's remains carried on to Washington on the Navy ship, accompanied by Bell (Mrs. Bell had debarked in New Jersey and made her way home overground). Melville Bell Grosvenor, "How James Smithson came to rest in the institution he never knew," Smithsonian Magazine (January 1976), pp. 30–35.
59 Richard E. Stamm, "Smithson's Personal Effects, Proposed Memorials, and Crypt," unpublished paper, 1995.
Epilogue 1832
1 George A. Foote, "The Place of Science in the British Reform Movement, 1830–1850," Isis 42 (1951), pp. 192–208.
2 Hungerford's half-brother, Georges Henri de la Batut, who gave the Smithsonian a number of items of Smithson memorabilia in the late nineteenth century, wrote that he was also "sending a passport made out in the name of my half brother, of whom I have only a few sketch books." The whereabouts of the sketchbooks now are unknown. G. H. La Batut to Pres. Dir. of the Smithsonian, December 12, 1877; SIA, RU 7000, Box 4.
3 Smithson in fact died on June 27, and his age was approximately sixty-four, not seventy-five.
4 When Langley got home he wrote a memorandum: "What is completely lacking, however, is that evidence of continued care which should be found about the last resting place of any one whose memory is honored, and whose grave is not forgotten by the living. … There is nothing whatever about the tomb to indicate that he is the founder of the Smithsonian Institution …" September 14, 1891; SIA, RU 7000, Box 6. Langley commissioned a young American artist William Ordway Partridge to design a panel commemorating Smithson's legacy. Three copies were made: one for the church in Genoa, one for the gravesite, and one to be placed in Pembroke College, Oxford. The Italian ones were stolen shortly after their installation, the Pembroke one can still be seen in the main courtyard of the college. Richard E. Stamm, "Smithson's Personal Effects, Italian Grave Site, Proposed Memorials, and Crypt Designs," unpublished manuscript, April 1995.
5 New-York American, January 26, 1830.
6 Lt. Col. Pinkney, of the North American Native Rangers, Travels through the South of France in 1807 and 1808 by a route never before performed, made by permission of the French government (London, 1814), p. 69, Smithson Library SIL.
7 Smithson to Lord Holland, November 22, 1805, BL Add MS 51823, ff. 258–9.
Picture Credits
Illustrations in the Text
The great hall of the Smithsonian building, c. 1867. (Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 95, Photograph Collection, 1850s-, Neg. # MAH-60144A)
The regents' room, c. 1857. (Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 95, Photograph Collection, 1850s-, Neg. # 2005-10436)
Weston, near Bath, by Samuel Hieronymus Grimm, 1789. (Copyright © The British Library, all rights reserved, Add MS 15547, f. 115)
Engraving of the first Duke of Northumberland, after a pastel by Hugh Douglas Hamilton. (Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 95, Photograph Collection, 1850s-, Neg. # 91-6951)
Doctor Johnson at Pembroke College, Oxford, 1784, by James Roberts. (This image forms part of a research program coordinated by the University of Oxford and has been supplied under license by Isis Innovation Ltd. © Isis Innovation Limited 2006)
Fingal's Cave, Staffa, from Faujas de St. Fond's A Journey through England and Scotland to the Hebrides in 1784. (Courtesy of Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Washington, D.C.)
Faujas' tour stops at a Druidical circle, from Faujas' A Journey … to the Hebrides in 1784. (Courtesy of Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Washington, D.C.)
Prince Lee Boo, engraving by T. Kirk. (Courtesy of Southwark Local Studies Library)
The meeting room of the Royal Society at Somerset House. (© The Royal Society)
"The Manner of Passing Mount Cenis," by George Keate, 1755. (© Copyright the Trustees of the British Museum)
Joseph Priestley as "Dr. Phlogiston." (© Copyright the Trustees of the British Museum)
Luigi Galvani's "animal electricity" experiments. (Science Museum/Science and Society Picture Library)
Gillray caricature of C. J. Fox, 1795. (National Portrait Gallery, London)
Members of the Society of the Dilettanti, 1777, mezzotint engraving by William Say, after a painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds. (National Portrait Gallery, London)
Frontispiece from A. J. Garnerin's Air Balloon and Parachute
, 1802. (Courtesy of Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Washington D.C.)
The Hungerford chapel at Salisbury Cathedral, by J. C. Schnebbelie, 1788. (Reproduced by permission of Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society)
Vivant Denon in Kassel, 1807, by Benjamin Zix. (Réunion des musées nationaux I Art Resource, NY)
The harbor at Tönning, 1805. (Courtesy of Gesellschaft für Tönninger Stadtgeschichte e.V.)
William Buckland entering Kirkdale Cave. (Oxford University Muséum of Natural History)
Frontispiece from William Bullock's Descriptive Catalogue of the Exhibition entitled Ancient and Modem Mexico, 1824. (Courtesy of Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Washington D.C.)
Henry James Hungerford. (James Smithson Collection, Division of Politics & Reform, National Muséum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. Courtesy of Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 95, Photograph Collection, 1850s-, Neg. # 2002-12209)
"Distinguished Men of Science Living in 1807-08." (© The Royal Society)
"A Chancery Suit!" Anon., 1828. (© Copyright the Trustees of the British Museum)
William Henry Bishop at Smithson's exhumation, photographed by Mrs. Alexander Graham Bell, 1903. (Courtesy of Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 95, Photograph Collection, 1850s-, Neg. # 71-57-2)
Design for a Mausoleum for Smithson, 1904, by Henry Bacon. (Courtesy of Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 92, Prints and Drawings, 1840-, Neg. # 90-16191)
Smithson's Tomb in Genoa, engraving. (Courtesy of Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 95, Photograph Collection, 1850s-, Neg. # 82-3202)
Plate Section
Portrait of a Mother and Child, by George Romney. (Private collection)
London, a View of Northumberland House, looking eastward, by Canaletto. (Collection of the Duke of Northumberland, Alnwick Castle)
Hugh Percy, the first Duke of Northumberland, by James Barry. (Collection of the Duke of Northumberland, Syon House)
Margaret Marriott, by Angelica Kauffrnan. (Courtesy of the Royal Pavilion, Libraries & Museums, Brighton & Hove)
Portrait of Hugh, Lord Warkworth, later second Duke of Northumberland, and the Rev. Jonathan Lippyat, his tutor, by Nathaniel Dance. (Collection of the Duke of Northumberland, Syon House)
Portrait of Lord Algernon Percy, later first Earl of Beverley, by Pompeo Batoni. (Collection of the Duke of Northumberland, Alnwick Castle)
James Louis Macie, 1786, by James Roberts [Smithson in his Oxford robes]. (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution)
Henry Louis Dickenson, 1805, by Jacob Spornberg. (James Smithson Collection, Division of Politics & Reform, National Muséum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. Courtesy of Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 95, Photograph Collection, 1850s-, Neg. # 82-3147)
Paolo Andreani's balloon ascent, 1784, by Francesco Battaglioli. (Courtesy of the Museo delta Societá, Gallarate)
MacNab's Hut, from Faujas' A Journey … to the Hebrides in 1784. (Courtesy of Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Washington, D.C.)
A salt mine in Cheshire, 1814, a colored aquatint engraving by J. Bluck, after an original work by R. H. Marten. (Science Museum/ Science and Society Picture Library)
Portrait of a Young Man in Florence, by Louis Gauffier, 1796. (© Private Collection /Giraudon /The Bridgeman Art Library)
Elizabeth, Lady Webster, in Naples, by Robert Fagan, 1793. (Private Collection)
The Vesuvius eruption of 1794, by Giovanni Battista Lusieri. (Copyright © The British Library, all rights reserved, Tab.435.a.15.(1))
"Scientific Researches! New Discoveries in Pneumakicks! Or An Experimental Lecture on the Powers of Air," by James Gillray, 1802. (Copyright © the Tmstees of the British Museum)
The fire of 1865 at the Smithsonian, January 24, photographed and retouched by Alexander Gardner. (Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 95, Photograph Collection, 1850s-, Neg. # 37082)
James Smithson, by Henri Johns, 1816. (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution)
End papers
The will of james Smithson. (The National Archives of the UK, PROB 10/5127)
Acknowledgments
The path to Smithson all but vanished long ago. It was not clear at the outset where even to start, and I am grateful to many friends and colleagues and family for their help and encouragement. Pam Henson, head of Institutional History at the Smithsonian, whose idea this book was, has helped in coundess ways, reading the manuscript at different stages and assisting with grant applications, documents, and illustrations. Hugh Torrens generously shared all that he had gathered on Smithson, much of which I would not have found on my own. Judd Stitziel was the best reader one could ever wish for, and he also translated endless amounts of German for me. Steven Turner deciphered the secrets of Smithson's laboratory world and patiently explained them in layman's terms. Roy S. Clarke, Jr., did the same for the world of meteorites, as well as commenting on the entire manuscript, and his enthusiasm and support for this project have made all the difference. Vyvyan Lyle poured her brilliant energy into exploring many of the enduring mysteries of Smithson's family story. Louis Jebb took me tomb–hunting for Hungerfords and did so much more besides, searching for Henry Louis Dickenson at Pere Lachaise and bringing his editorial skills to bear on an unwieldy draft of chapter one. And without Will Palin this would have been a much more lugubrious book.
I am grateful especially to the friends and colleagues who read and commented on all or parts of the book, especially William St. Clair, Elizabeth Kostova, Peter Clasen, Nadja Durbach, Cynthia Field, Paul Pohwat, Jenny Allen, David Clasen, and Laura Wexler. And thanks especially to Rodolph de Salis for his help fact–checking footnotes, tracking down elusive sources, and researching Hungerfordiana.
At the Smithsonian, I owe many people thanks for their help and support, especially Kelly Crawford, Leslie Overstreet and Daria Wingreen, Rick Stamm, Marc Pachter, Laura Brouse–Long, Tom Crouch, David Shayt, Ellen Miles, Larry Bird, Kathy Dorman, Marc Rothenberg, and Cesare Marino.
Thanks also to Peter Barber, Simon Werrett, John Detloff, David Aubin, and Eliza Byard, for many stimulating conversations; Susan Bennett, for sharing her work on Georgiana Keate Henderson with me; Christopher Woodward, for talk of Holland House and sons with chips on their shoulders; Ronnie Graham, for all his help interpreting the case in chancery; Lady Caroline Percy, who showed me Syon; Major David Gape and his daughter; Brian Wilson, for all his help with Pembroke matriculations; Roger Cooter for generously sharing his work on Baume; and Sue Palmer, for many wonderful discoveries.
It will be clear from the notes how much I owe to the archivists and librarians who have assisted me in my research. I have thanked many directly in the relevant citation but extend special thanks to all the staff at the Smithsonian Archives; Neil Chambers and the Joseph Banks Archive Project at the Natural History Museum, London; Jane Cunningham of the Photographic Survey at the Courtauld Institute of Art; Arnold Hunt and Matthew Shaw at the British Library; Joanna Corden and staff at the Royal Society; Frank James at the Royal Institution; the archivists at Pembroke College, Oxford; Clare Baxter at Alnwick Castle; Roy Goodman and Rob Cox at the American Philosophical Society; Sarah Millard at the Bank of England; and Tonino Caruso at the Collegio Nazareno in Rome.
Thanks to the Piegaya brothers at the Royal Victoria in Pisa, who took such good care of me, as they do their guest registers filled with the signatures of Queen Victoria, Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf and other latter–day Grand Tourists. Thanks to Helmut Wrunsch of the Gesellschaft für Tönninger Stadtgeschichte e.V. for his generous help investigating Smithson in Tönning. Thanks to my friend Patrik Ohlson for his help tracking down the Holtermann connection in Sweden, to Massimo Pellegrini for his research on Smithson's seal, and to Francesca Boschieri for all her work on Smithson in Genoa. Thanks to Alex Kidson for his help with research on the Romney portrait. Many thanks to Luda Smikovskaya for her
efforts to help me find the original Gauffier painting, and to Lucia Tonini in Florence, Anna Ottani Cavina in Bologna, John Lloyd in London, and Amy Ballard and her legion of St. Petersburg contacts for the same. Special thanks too to the graphologist JoNeal Scully, who generously analyzed a Smithson letter in her own time, and whose insights into Smithson gave me confidence to rely on my own.
James Smithson's story could not really have been told if it were not for the scholarship in the history of science and the culture of the English Enlightenment that has been advanced in the last generation. I am indebted to the work of Jan Golinski, Isaac Kramnick, Trevor Levere, Maurice Crosland, the late Roy Porter, Hugh Torrens, Matthew Eddy, David Knight, Brian Dolan, and others. My woeful science literacy, while a pretty standard product of a liberal arts education in late twentieth–century America, has hardly been up to some of the challenges Smithson's life story poses, and I take full responsibility for the shortcomings of the book in that regard. I find some consolation in the fact that Smithson has not much caught the attention of historians of science (the Dictionary of Scientific Biography characterized his contributions as "minimal"), but I hope that by excavating Smithson's story he might now be drawn back into the narrative of the late English Enlightenment and his experiments enjoy the scrutiny of those scholars concerned with the birth of mineralogy and modern chemistry.
I am very grateful for grants and fellowships from the following institutions, which enabled me to carry out the research for this book, and to George L. Hersey, John Newman, and Steven Parissien for supporting my applications: the British Academy for a Visiting Fellowship; the Map Library of the British Library for the Helen Wallis Fellowship; the Max Planck Institut fur Wissenschaft–geschichte in Berlin and Dr. Ursula Klein's group in particular for a working environment I shall probably spend my entire life trying to replicate; the Center of American Overseas Research Centers and the American Academy in Rome for a CAORC Multi–Country Fellowship; the American Philosophical Society for a Franklin Library Fellowship; the Trustees of the London Library for assistance with membership; the Institute for Historical Research's Center for Metropolitan History for granting me Honorary Fellow status for the summer of 2002; the Smithsonian's Office of Fellowships and Grants for a Short–Term Visitor's Fellowship; and the Smithsonian Archives' Institutional History Division, for according me research associate status, logistical support, and several honoraria.
The Lost World of James Smithson Page 47