JAMES SMITHSON 



By Samuel Pierpont Langley 



^jlHE founder of the Smithsonian Institution was 

 known in his earlier years as James Lewis 

 Macie, his mother, Elizabeth Keate Macie, 

 being at the time of his birth, in 1765, the 

 "'^'^^ widow of James Macie, a country gentleman 

 of an old family resident at Weston, near Bath. She was 

 of the Hungerfords of Studley, a great-grandniece of 

 Charles, Duke of Somerset, through whom she was lineally 

 descended from Henry the Seventh, and was cousin of that 

 Elizabeth Percy who married Hugh Smithson (who later 

 became Duke of Northumberland, and by act of Parliament 

 took the name of Percy). 



An unverified story represents Smithson's mother as at one 

 time hoping to have contracted a marriage with the Duke 

 of Northumberland, and seeking, for that purpose, a divorce 

 from her husband, which he successfully opposed; but, in any 

 case, the subject of our sketch, who only apparently after his 

 mother's death applied to the Crown for permission to take 

 the name of Smithson, describes himself in his final will as 

 " son to Hugh, first Duke of Northumberland, and Elizabeth, 



