Editing James Smithson (section)

==Early life==
[[File:James Smithson at Oxford-c. 1786.jpg|thumb|left|A young James Louis Macie, dressed in [[University_of_Oxford|Oxford]] regalia, by James Roberts, c. 1786]]

James Smithson was born in c. 1765 to [[Hugh Percy, 1st Duke of Northumberland]] and Elizabeth Hungerford Keate Macie.<ref name=SIAmain/> His mother was the widow of John Macie, a wealthy man from [[Weston, Bath]].<ref name=GoodeA>{{cite book|last=Goode|first=George Brown|title=Birth of James Smithson|year=1897|publisher=De Vinne Press|location=New York|pages=1, 9|url=http://siarchives.si.edu/collections/siris_sic_452}}</ref> An [[illegitimate child]], Smithson was born in secret in Paris, resulting in his birth name being the [[Francophone]] Jacques-Louis Macie (later altered to James Louis Macie). In 1801 when he was about 36, after the death of his again-widowed mother, he changed his last name to Smithson, the original surname of his biological father.<ref name=SIAmain/><ref>As early as December 1800, Macie began using the name Smithson, by signing the Royal Society of London visitor register as James Smithson.</ref><ref name=namechange>{{cite web|title=James Macie Changes His Name to Smithson|url=http://siarchives.si.edu/collections/siris_sic_11417|department=Public Records Office, Great Britain|publisher=[[Smithsonian Institution Archives]]|access-date=6 May 2012}}</ref> (Baronet Hugh Smithson had changed his surname to Percy when he married Lady Elizabeth Seymour, already a baroness and indirect heiress of the Percy family, one of the leading landowning families of England).

James was educated and eventually [[naturalised]] in England.<ref name=GoodeA/> He enrolled at [[Pembroke College, Oxford]] in 1782 and graduated in 1786 with an [[Master of Arts (Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin)|MA]].<ref name=pembroke>{{cite web|title=James Smithson Enrolls at Oxford|url=http://siarchives.si.edu/collections/siris_sic_454|work=Record Unit 7000, Box 5|publisher=Smithsonian Institution Archives|access-date=6 May 2012}}</ref><ref name=graduate>{{cite book|last=Goode|first=George Brown|title=The Smithsonian Institution, 1846–1896, The History of Its First Half Century|year=1880|publisher=De Vinne Press|location=Washington, D.C.|pages=10–11|url=http://www.siarchives.si.edu/collections/siris_sic_456}}</ref> The poet [[George Keate]] was a first cousin once removed, on his mother's side.

Smithson was [[nomadic]] in his lifestyle, travelling throughout Europe.<ref name=SIAmain/> As a student, in 1784, he participated in a geological expedition with [[Barthélemy Faujas de Saint-Fond]], [[William Thornton]] and [[Paolo Andreani]] to Scotland and especially the [[Hebrides]].<ref name=scotland>{{cite book|last=Goode|first=George Brown|title=The Smithsonian Institution, 1846–1896, The History of Its First Half Century|year=1897|publisher=De Vinne Press|location=Washington, D.C.|pages=10|url=https://siris-sihistory.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?&profile=all&source=~!sichronology&uri=full=3100001~!455~!3}}</ref>  He was in Paris during the [[French Revolution]].<ref name=SIAmain/> In August 1807 Smithson became a prisoner of war while in [[Tönning]] during the [[Napoleonic Wars]]. He arranged a transfer to [[Hamburg]], where he was again imprisoned, now by the French. The following year, Smithson wrote to [[Sir Joseph Banks]] and asked him to use his influence to gain release; Banks succeeded and Smithson returned to England.<ref name=prisoner>{{cite web|title=Smithson Held as a Prisoner of War|url=http://siarchives.si.edu/collections/siris_sic_346|work=James Smithson Collection, 1796–1951.|publisher=Smithsonian Institution Archives|access-date=6 May 2012}}</ref> He never married or had children.<ref name=SIAmain>{{cite web|title=James Smithson|url=http://siarchives.si.edu/history/james-smithson|work=Smithsonian History|publisher=[[Smithsonian Institution Archives]]|access-date=28 February 2018}}</ref>

In 1766, his mother had inherited from the [[George Hungerford (1637-1712)|Hungerford]] family of Studley, where her brother had lived up until his death.<ref name=Inherit>{{cite book|last=Goode|first=George Brown|title=The Smithsonian Institution, 1846–1896, The History of Its First Half Century|year=1897|publisher=De Vinne Press|location=Washington, D.C. |page=22 |url=https://siris-sihistory.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?&profile=all&source=~!sichronology&uri=full=3100001~!453~!1}}</ref> His controversial legal step-father John Marshe Dickinson (aka Dickenson) of Dunstable died in 1771.<ref>His mother married him in the autumn of 1768, see ''Dickenson v. Macie'' (London, 1771), ''The Law Library'', volume XXII, Philadelphia, 1838.</ref> Smithson's wealth stemmed from the splitting of his mother's estate with his half-brother, Col. Henry Louis Dickenson.<ref name=Inherit/>