Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 53.djvu/118

 reward of financial assistance rendered by Smith to Pitt. Carrington refuted this charge on the appearance of Wraxall's ‘Memoirs’ in 1836 by a letter printed in the ‘Quarterly Review’ (No. cxiv. p. 456). In 1802 Pitt, as warden of the Cinque ports, appointed Carrington captain of Deal, and in the following year he became lieutenant-colonel of the second battalion of the Cinque ports volunteers. In April 1803 he entertained Pitt at his seat, Wycombe Abbey. On 3 July 1810 he was created D.C.L. of Oxford, and in 1819 LL.D. of Cambridge University. He was also a vice-president of the Literary Fund, F.R.S., and F.S.A. He was a firm supporter of the tory party, and, when in later years unable to attend the House of Lords, he entrusted his proxy to the Duke of Wellington. He died on 18 Sept. 1838 at his mansion in Whitehall, and was buried at High Wycombe on 2 Oct.

Carrington married, first, on 6 July 1780, Anne, eldest daughter of Lewyns Boldero Barnard of Cave Castle, Yorkshire; by her he had one son, Robert John, born 16 Jan. 1796, who succeeded to the peerage, took the name Carrington instead of Smith by royal license, dated 26 Aug. 1839, and died on 17 March 1868, being succeeded by his eldest son, Charles Robert, the present Lord Carrington, who changed the family name from Carrington to Carington. The first lord had also seven daughters, of whom the second, Catherine Lucy, married Philip Henry, fourth earl Stanhope, and was mother of Philip Henry, fifth earl Stanhope [q. v.], and the seventh, Emily, married Lord Granville Charles Henry Somerset.

[Annual Register, 1838, p. 225 (by Carrington's grandson, Earl Stanhope); Gent. Mag. 1838, ii. 545–6, 678; Official Returns of Members of Parl.; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715–1886; Burke's and G. E. C.'s Peerages; Stanhope's Life of Pitt, passim; Wraxall's Posthumous Memoirs, 1836; Life of Wilberforce, i. 77; Martin's Stories of Banks and Bankers.]

 SMITH, ROBERT ANGUS (1817–1884), chemist, born in Glasgow on 15 Feb. 1817, was twelfth child and seventh son of John Smith of Loudoun, Ayrshire, and his wife Janet, daughter of James Thomson, a millowner at Strathaven (see ‘Shepherd’ Smith, p. 13).

An elder brother, John (1800–1871), master at Perth Academy, wrote a paper on the ‘Origin of Colour and Theory of Light’ (Memoirs of Manchester Lit. and Phil. Soc. [3], i. 1, 1859), which contains original and still unexplained experiments on the production of colour phenomena by rotating discs marked with black and white patterns. These have been recently reinvestigated without reference to Smith's work by C. E. Benham and others (‘An Artificial Spectrum Top,’ Nature, vol. 1. [1894–5] passim). Another brother, James Elimalet Smith, is separately noticed, and a third brother, Micaiah Smith (1807–1867), was a minister of the Scottish kirk, and an orientalist.

At nine Angus went to the Glasgow grammar school, and at thirteen to the Glasgow University, where he received a classical education, but, with his brother John, read Priestley's and other scientific works. On leaving the university he became tutor to several families in succession, first in the highlands and then in England. He spent two years with the Hon. and Rev. E. Bridgeman, with whom he went to Germany. He there heard of the great chemist Justus Liebig (1802–1875), who had created the first German school of chemistry at Giessen; and worked under him at that town during 1839–41, proceeding Ph.D. in 1841. He was a fellow-worker there with A. W. Hofmann (1818–1892), Lyon (now Lord) Playfair, Dr. Edward Schunck, F.R.S., and John Stenhouse [q. v.] During his stay he gave much time to philosophy as well as chemistry. On his return to England at the end of 1841 he published a translation of Liebig's work ‘On the Azotised Nutritive Principles of Plants.’ An early inclination towards a theological career revived, but was abandoned; and in 1842 he became assistant to Dr. Playfair, who was at the time professor of chemistry at the Manchester Royal Institution. Dr. Playfair's interest in the work of the health of towns commission, of which the sanitary reformer, Edwin (afterwards Sir Edwin) Chadwick (1801–1890), was the moving spirit, led Smith to pay attention to sanitary chemistry, and to this subject he devoted the greater part of his life. He decided to settle as a consulting chemist in Manchester, and on 29 April 1845 he was elected member of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, of which he was president from April 1864 till April 1866. In 1847 he published his first paper on air (Memoirs of the Chemical Society, iii. 311), in which he made the important suggestion that the organic matter given out in respiration may be more injurious than the carbonic acid. He collected the moisture condensed on the window-pane of a crowded room, and examined the residue left after evaporation. In the same year he reported to the metropolitan sanitary commission on this subject; and also examined water derived from peaty soil. In 1848 (Brit. Assoc. Report, p. 16) he pointed out that the or-