Smithson Tennant
Smithson Tennant FRS (30 November 1761[1] – 22 February 1815[2]) was an English chemist.
Tennant is best known for his discovery of the elements iridium and osmium, which he found in the residues from the solution of platinum ores in 1803. He also contributed to the proof of the identity of diamond and charcoal. The mineral tennantite is named after him.
Contents
Life
Tennant was born in Selby in Yorkshire. His father was Calvert Tennant (named after his grandmother Phyllis Calvert, a granddaughter of Cecilius Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore). His own name derives from his grandmother Rebecca Smithson, widow of Joshua Hitchling. He attended Beverley Grammar School and there is a plaque over one of the entrances to the present school commemorating his discovery of the two elements, osmium and iridium. He began to study medicine at Edinburgh in 1781, but in a few months moved to Cambridge, where he devoted himself to botany and chemistry. He graduated M.D. at Cambridge in 1796,[3] and about the same time purchased an estate near Cheddar, where he carried out agricultural experiments. He was appointed professor of chemistry at Cambridge in 1813, but lived to deliver only one course of lectures, being killed near Boulogne-sur-Mer by the fall of a bridge over which he was riding.[4][2]
Notes
References
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.- Mary D. Archer, Christopher D. Haley. The 1702 Chair of Chemistry at Cambridge. Cambridge, 2005, ISBN 0-521-82873-2, ISBN 978-0-521-82873-4.
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
External links
- Pages with broken file links
- Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference
- Articles incorporating Cite DNB template
- Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the ODNB
- 1761 births
- 1815 deaths
- People from Selby
- English chemists
- Fellows of the Royal Society
- Alumni of the University of Edinburgh
- Alumni of Christ's College, Cambridge
- Discoverers of chemical elements
- Academics of the University of Cambridge
- Recipients of the Copley Medal
- Accidental deaths in France
- 18th-century English people
- 19th-century English people
- 18th-century chemists
- 19th-century chemists
- Iridium
- Osmium
- People educated at Beverley Grammar School
