Henry George Smith

Who was Henry George Smith?

Henry George Smith was an Australian chemist whose pioneering work on the chemistry of the essential oils of the Australian flora achieved worldwide recognition.

Smith was born at Littlebourne, Kent, England. He was educated at schools at Ickham and Wingham, and also had private tuition from the Rev. Mr Midgley, M.A. He went to Sydney in 1883 for health reasons, and in 1884 obtained a semi-scientific position on the staff of the Sydney technological museum. He began studying scientific subjects and chemistry in particular, in 1891 was appointed a laboratory assistant at the museum, and in the same year his first original paper was published in the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales. He became mineralogist at the museum in 1895, and in the same year in collaboration with Joseph Maiden contributed a paper on "Eucalyptus Kinos and the Occurrence of Endesmia" to the Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales. This was Smith's first contribution to organic chemistry; later on from 1898 to 1911 he lectured on this subject to evening students at the Sydney technical college.