Smithson Tennant, F. R. S. (1761-1815)

Abstract

The discovery of two of the chemical elements (osmium and iridium) and close association with that of two others (rhodium and palladium) has not fallen to the lot of many people and of them, until quite recently, Smithson Tennant must have been one of the least known. Nevertheless, he had many admirable qualities and in his lifetime held an influential position among a great number of friends, a fact to which we owe the preservation of such details of his life as have survived. On his death it was they who thought that some memory of him should be kept alive, and one of them, John Whishaw (assisted by another, Henry Warburton) took upon himself the task of collecting and editing the recollections of them all. Whishaw was a near contemporary of Tennant at Cambridge and remained his life-long friend. He qualified as a lawyer and spent thirty years as a Commissioner in the Audit Office, during which time he became a most notable man-about-town, knowing all the prominent people in the worlds of politics, art, science and literature. At Holland House, one of the principal resorts of such people, he earned the title of ‘The Pope’ (1). The result of his work on Tennant was published in Thomson’s Annals o f Philosophy in 1816 (2) and subsequently, with some tidying-up and the addition of four paragraphs, the article was issued separately as a 46-page pamphlet (3) for distribution among the friends.