Arthur Smithells

Smithells, Arthur. [1913.] The researches on the transformation of elements at University College London. From a note by Professor A. Smithells. [Morris Travers writes Copy, original returned to Smithells ]. Sir William Ramsay Papers, University College London. Vol. XV, Part II, 274. 

The chemists frenzy over transmutation perhaps reached its peak at the meeting of the Chemical Society on February 6, 1913, at which Ramsay discussed his experiments and Collie and Patterson read papers on the alleged formation of neon and helium due to electricity discharged through hydrogen at low pressure. Professor Arthur Smithells, FRS (1860-1939), of the University of Leeds left an unpublished record of that meeting and of the gathering... 

Schorlemmer, Carl. 1889. The Rise and Development of Organic Chemistry. Rev. ed., edited by Arthur Smithells. London Macmillan, 1894. 

I also wish to thank the Bodleian Library at Oxford University for permission to do research in the Frederick Soddy Papers in their Modem Manuscripts collections, and the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford University, for permission to work with Soddy s lecture notes and papers in their archives. I thank University College London, Special Collections, for permission to do research in the Sir William Ramsay Papers. I also thank the special collections librarians at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, for access to H. G. Wells s papers, and the University of Texas at Austin Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center for access to Edith Sitwell s papers. Frances Soar of the Geographical Association, the administrators of the Frederick Soddy Tmst, and Maxwell Wright and Gwen Huntley of Bunkers Solicitors generously helped me in my efforts to track down an estate for Frederick Soddy s unpublished writings. And I wish to thank Mark Smithells and the Smithells family in New Zealand for permission to quote from Arthur Smithells s unpublished manuscript in the Frederick Soddy Papers. 

Ingold quickly found a valuable colleague in H. M. Dawson, who had studied at Manchester with Arthur Smithells and in Germany with van t Hoff, K. Elbs, and Abegg. Thermodynamics and kinetics were Dawson s principal interests "Dawson taught me a lot of physical chemistry in a quiet way, and I became very interested in his attempts to sort out the kinetic effects of the constitutents of electrolytic solutions," Ingold later reminisced. 15... 

A leading exponent of domestic science for girls was Arthur Smithells, Professor of Chemistry at Leeds University (see Chap. 5). Smithells was part of the Science for All movement, which was concerned with the low level of scientific awareness among the general population.61 Members of the Movement contended that humanisation of science was the answer, in which scientific principles were related to people s daily lives. Smithells saw domestic science as a means of bringing an applied aspect that would, in particular, be appropriate in the education of girls. 

Stem, R. (1912). Science in Girls Schools. School World 14 460-461. This issue of School World had a whole section (pp. 452-465) on the contentious issue of the appropriate science for girls. Amongst the contributers were L. M. Faithfull, Ida Freund, Charlotte L. Laurie (science teacher, CLC), Jessie White, and Arthur Smithells. 

Raper, H. S. (1940). Arthur Smithells, 1860-1939. Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society 3 96-107. 

Of all the university chemistry professors, it was Arthur Smithells,48 Chair of Chemistry at Leeds from 1885 until 1923,49 who had been most active in promoting the science education of girls (see Chap. 1). The explanation for his interest dates back to his last days at Owens College, Manchester, before his appointment at Yorkshire College ... 

Arthur Smithells (Bury, Lancs., 24 May i86o-London, 8 February 1939), professor of chemistry in Leeds, devised the familiar apparatus for separating the two cones of a Bunsen flame, after seeing a different experiment by Dixon with a straight tube, a method also used by N. Teclu, who separated the cones of a Bunsen flame in a single tube by adding just sufficient air to the gas. Smithells found that when the flame of dry cyanogen in air is separated into cones, the carbon monoxide flame continues to burn in dry air unless the cones... 

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