Robert Angus Smith FRS (15 February 1817 – 12 May 1884), commonly referred to as Angus Smith, was a Scottish chemist, who investigated numerous environmental issues. He is known for his research on air pollution in 1852, in the course of which he discovered what came to be known as acid rain. He is sometimes referred to as the 'Father of Acid Rain'.

Education and early life

thumb|A [[Royal Society of Chemistry Blue plaque commemorating Smith in Grosvenor Square Manchester, the site of Smith's laboratory]]

Born at Pollokshaws, Glasgow, Smith was educated at the University of Glasgow in preparation for ministry in the Church of Scotland but left before graduating. He worked as a personal tutor and, accompanying a family to Gießen in 1839, he stayed on in Germany to study chemistry supervised by Justus von Liebig, earning a PhD in 1841.

In 1872 Smith published the book Air and Rain: The Beginnings of a Chemical Climatology, which presents his studies of the chemistry of atmospheric precipitation. After his death his collection of about 4,000 books was acquired by the library of Owens College, Manchester. They are now in the John Rylands University Library, the successor of the college library.

Spiritualism

Smith with his friend William Crookes, attended a séance on 21 April 1870 in London. He sent Crookes 15 letters on spiritualism between April 1869 and 1871. Smith did not choose to write widely about spiritualism as he believed it might damage his scientific reputation. He was a member of the Society for Psychical Research from 1882 to 1884. After he died, 89 books on the occult were discovered in his library.

Awards and honours

Smith was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1857. becoming Secretary of the Society1852–57 and President Society 1864–66

Publications

  • On Sewage and Sewage Rivers (1855)
  • Disinfectants and Disinfection (1869)
  • Air and Rain: The Beginnings of a Chemical Climatology (1872)
  • Chemical and Physical Researches (1876)
  • Loch Etive and the sons of Uisnach: With Illustrations (1879)
  • A Centenary of Science in Manchester (1883)

References

Bibliography

  • Reed, Peter. Acid rain and the rise of the environmental chemist in nineteenth-century Britain: the life and work of Robert Angus Smith (Routledge, 2016).