Smithson was one of the first researchers to systematically categorize calamine—or zinc as it was later called. In 1832, three years after Smithson’s death, French mineralogist François Sulpice ...

Wealthy British globe-trotter James Smithson (1765-1829) had amassed an estate worth roughly $500,000 at the time of his death and ordered that all of his assets be inherited by his nephew ...

The signature of Elizabeth Macie, James Smithson’s mother, on the Hungerford Deed, 1787, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Acc. 19-150. Smithsonian Libraries and Archives ...

The Smithsonian Institution was established with funds from James Smithson (1765–1829), a British scientist who left his estate to the United States to found “at Washington, under the name of the ...

In 1826, James Smithson, a British scientist, drew up his last will and testament, naming his nephew as beneficiary. Smithson stipulated that, should the nephew die without heirs (as he would in ...

In 1826 a not very happy James Smithson of England sat down to write his will. He had half a million dollars but only a nephew to enjoy them. He was 61 and infirm. His father, the Duke of ...