Alexander Smith (chemist)

For other people named Alexander Smith, see Alexander Smith (disambiguation).

Professor Alexander Smith FRSE
Born	(1865-09-11)11 September 1865 Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Died	8 September 1922(1922-09-08) (aged 56) Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Alma mater	Edinburgh Collegiate School University of Edinburgh Munich University
Spouse	Sarah Bowles (married 1905)
Children	William Bowles Smith Isabella Carter Smith
Awards	Keith Medal
Scientific career
Fields	Chemistry
Institutions	University of Edinburgh Wabash College University of Chicago Columbia University
Signature

Alexander Smith (11 September 1865 – 8 September 1922) was a Scottish chemist, who spent his working life teaching in the universities of America.

Biography

He was born at 4 Nelson Street in Edinburgh's New Town,^[1] the son of Isabella (née Carter) and Alexander W. Smith, a music teacher. His paternal grandfather was the sculptor Alexander Smith.^[2] The family moved to 4 West Castle Road in the Merchiston district while he was young.^[3]

He was educated at Edinburgh Collegiate School. He studied sciences (later specialising in chemistry) at the University of Edinburgh. He was taught mathematics by George Chrystal, physics by Peter Guthrie Tait and chemistry by Alexander Crum Brown.^[4] He graduated BSc in 1886. During his university years he showed a keen interest in astronomy and published four papers on the subject. He went to Germany in 1886 for further postgraduate studies and gained his doctorate at the University of Munich under Prof Rainer Ludwig Claisen in Baeyer's laboratory in 1889.^[5]

In 1890, aged 25, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Alexander Crum Brown, John Gibson, Leonard Dobbin and Ralph Stockman. In 1911 the Society awarded him its Keith Medal for the period 1909–1911.^[6] In 1910 and 1911 he published, with coauthor Alan W. C. Menzies, important experimental research on vapor pressures.^[7]

After moving to the United States, Smith was professor of chemistry and mineralogy at Wabash College (1890–1894) and later a faculty member at the University of Chicago (1895–1911). His former student James Bert Garner at Wabash College went on to invent the gas mask. In 1911 he was called to Columbia University to be professor and head of the department of chemistry, and in the same year he held the presidency of the American Chemical Society. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1915.

In 1919 the University of Edinburgh awarded him an honorary doctorate (LLD).

He retired due to ill-health in 1921 and returned home to Edinburgh, where he died on 8 September 1922.

Family

In 1905 he married Sarah Ludden, a widow (née Sarah Bowles) from Memphis, Tennessee.^[8] They had one son, William Bowles Smith, and one daughter, Isabella Carter Smith.^[9]

Publications

• Asteroids and Their Origin (1885)
• Laboratory Outline of General Chemistry (1899)
• The Teaching of Chemistry and Physics (1902), with Prof. E. H. Hall
• Introduction to General Inorganic Chemistry (1906; second edition, 1912)
• General Chemistry for Colleges (1908; revised edition, 1916)
• A Text-Book of Elementary Chemistry (1914)

References

1. Edinburgh Post Office Directory 1865
2. Noyes, William Albert (1933). "Alexander Smith (1865-1922)". Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 68 (13): 673–676. JSTOR 20023011.
3. Edinburgh Post Office Directory 1875
4. W., J. (30 September 1922). "Obituary. Prof. Alexander Smith". Nature. 110: 457–458. doi:10.1038/110457b0.
5. "Biographical Index" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 January 2014. Retrieved 28 November 2014.
6. Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002 (PDF). The Royal Society of Edinburgh. July 2006. ISBN 0-902-198-84-X. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 13 July 2018.
7. "Obituary Notice. Alexander Smith". Journal of the Chemical Society, Transactions. 123, part 1 of volume: 950–954. 1923.
8. "Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences" (PDF). nasonline.org. Retrieved 29 May 2023.
9. Illinois Biographical Dictionary

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Gilman, D. C.; Peck, H. T.; Colby, F. M., eds. (1905). New International Encyclopedia (1st ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)