James Smithson, a British mineralogist and chemist, leaves a bequest of £100,000 to fund the Smithsonian Institution.
The duke's illegitimate son (by Elizabeth Hungerford Keate), James Smithson (1765–1829), is famed for having made the founding bequest and provided the name for the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C..
In 1836, President Andrew Jackson sent him to England as Commissioner to secure for the United States the legacy left the government by James Smithson.
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