Arthur Smithells, 1860 - 1939

Abstract

Arthur Smithells was born in Bury, Lancashire, on 24 May 1860. His father, James Smithells, an influential citizen of the town, was at that time traffic manager of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway. His mother was Martha, daughter of James Livesey. When he was eight years old the family moved to Glasgow owing to his father’s appointment as general manager of the Caledonian Railway Company. His early education was thus carried out in Scotland. For two years he was a student at Glasgow University and attended lectures by Lord Kelvin (then Sir William Thomson) and others. At the age of eighteen he entered Owens College, Manchester, and became a pupil of Henry E. Roscoe. This was not a bow drawn at a venture for quite early in life he had acquired a passion for science and especially for chemistry, and wished to take it up as a career. Because of the special circumstances in which he was brought up, it might have been expected that he would have chosen some activity connected with railways for his profession, and his interest in this sphere, like that of most boys, is shown by the fact that he constructed both indoor and outdoor railways at his home. But it was apparently the casual purchase of a Statham’s Chemical Cabinet that first directed his thoughts to chemistry. The magic that could be produced from this shilling box of chemicals and a test-tube made a never-to-be-forgotten impression on his boyish mind.