Samuel Smiles, 1877-1953

Abstract

Samuel Smiles, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry in the University of London, died at Tunbridge Wells on 6 May 1953. He was born in Belfast on 17 July 1877, an only son but with one sister. His father, also named Samuel, partner in the firm of Appleton, Machin and Smiles, tea dealers, had married Miss S. A. Pennington, an Australian- born lady who came of an English farming family. His grandfather was the well-known Samuel Smiles, author of Self help, Lives of the engineers , and many other works, who had begun life by studying medicine at Edinburgh and Leiden, and many years later was made an honorary LL.D. of his original University. Other members of the family were his uncle, William Smiles, who was manager of the Belfast Ropeworks; his first cousin, Sir Walter Smiles, M.P. for County Down, Northern Ireland, who was one of those who lost their lives in the wreck of the Princess Victoria off the Irish Coast in the storm of 31 January 1953; and a first cousin once removed, D. R. Hartree, now Professor of Mathematical Physics in the University of Cambridge. The family moved to London (Blackheath) in 1880 and it was there that Smiles spent a most happy boyhood and youth in the stimulating atmosphere provided by affectionate and sympathetic parents. He was considered to be a rather delicate and backward child; he was left-handed and inclined to stammer, but in fact he had no serious illness and later on he enjoyed games and played cricket and hockey for his House. He entered Marlborough on the Modern Side in 1890, having already at a preparatory school begun to learn German and to take an interest in natural history. In his last years at school his interest in chemistry was aroused by the teaching of R. G. Durrant, and he became anxious to take up a scientific career. It might have been expected that the young Smiles would enter the family business, but his father gave him every encouragement to take up scientific work when he realized that his son was not temperamentally suited to a business life.