Smithson Tennant FRS (30 November 1761 – 22 February 1815) was an English chemist. He is best known for his discovery of the elements iridium and

osmium Osmium (from Greek grc, ὀσμή, osme, smell, label=none) is a chemical element with the symbol Os and atomic number 76. It is a hard, brittle, bluish-white transition metal in the platinum group that is found as a trace element in alloys, mos ...

, 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 Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, cal ...

. The mineral tennantite is named after him.

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 Beverley Grammar School a boys’ day school secondary academy school in Beverley, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. A school may have been founded here about 700 AD and on that basis the school is claimed to be the country's oldest grammar sch ...

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 after a few months moved to Cambridge, where he devoted himself to botany and

chemistry Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...

. He graduated M.D. at Cambridge in 1796, and about the same time purchased an estate near Cheddar, where he carried out

agricultural Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating Plant, plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of Sedentism, sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of Domestication, domesticated species created food ...

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.

Legacy

In 2006,

American Elements American Elements is a global manufacturer and distributor of advanced materials with a more than 35,000-page online product catalog and compendium of information on the chemical elements, advanced materials, and high technology applications. The ...

discovered new technology allowing for the casting of seamless iridium rings for use in spacecraft and satellites. In 2016, the company utilized the same technology to introduce a line of iridium wedding bands marketed under the trademark Smithson Tennant.

Notes

References

* *Mary D. Archer, Christopher D. Haley. ''The 1702 Chair of Chemistry at Cambridge''. Cambridge, 2005, . * *

External links

*
Osmium and Iridium Events Surrounding Their DiscoveriesPassages from the life of a philosopher by Charles BabbageThe Early Life of Smithson Tennant FRS (1761–1815)
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Tennant, Smithson 1761 births 1815 deaths People from Selby Fellows of the Royal Society Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Alumni of Christ's College, Cambridge Discoverers of chemical elements Professors of chemistry (Cambridge, 1702) Recipients of the Copley Medal Accidental deaths in France 18th-century English chemists 19th-century English chemists Iridium Osmium People educated at Beverley Grammar School