Inheritance Received by Smithson's Mother

Summary

James Smithson's mother, Elizabeth Hungerford Keate Macie, inherits the property of the Hungerfords of Studley, on the death of her brother, Lumley Hungerford Keate.

Subject

• Dickinson, Henry Louis 1771-1820
• Hungerford, Henry James c. 1808-1835
• Hungerfords of Studley
• Keate, Lumley Hungerford
• Macie, Elizabeth Hungerford Keate
• Smithson, James 1765-1829

Category

Chronology of Smithsonian History

Notes

• Smithsonian Secretary Samuel P. Langley states that this is the probable source of a considerable portion of the Smithson bequest (Goode, Smithsonian Institution, 1897, p. 8). Langley later states that the property disposed of by Smithson's will is believed to have been received chiefly from the estate of Smithson's half brother, Col. Henry Louis Dickinson, a son of his mother by a second marriage (ibid, p. 22). The half-brothers each received half of their mother's estate. Rhees mentions only the Dickinson estate, which Smithson held in trust for the benefit of the son of this brother. It is to this nephew, Henry James Hungerford, that Smithson bequeaths his whole fortune,
• Goode, George Brown, ed. The Smithsonian Institution, 1846-1896, The History of Its First Half Century. Washington, D.C.: De Vinne Press, 1897, p. 8, 22.
• Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, vol. 21, no. 330, Article I. "James Smithson and his Bequest," by William J. Rhees. Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1880, p. 22.

Contact information

Institutional History Division, Smithsonian Institution Archives, 600 Maryland Avenue, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20024-2520, SIHistory@si.edu

Date

1766

Topic

• Smithson Bequest
• Benefactors
• Inheritance and succession

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