Albert George Dew-Smith

Albert George Dew-Smith (27 October 1848 – 17 March 1903)[1] was a British physiologist, lens maker, bibliophile, and amateur photographer. He co-founded the Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company, and conducted early research with physiologist Michael Foster.

A. G. Dew-Smith was born in Salisbury, England to Charles Dew. He took the name Dew-Smith after inheriting substantial property in 1870.[lower-alpha 1] He attended Trinity College, Cambridge, earning a B.A. (1873) and M.A. (1876). He was an early student of Michael Foster, and conducted research on electrical stimulation of mollusc and frog hearts in the 1870s, making three working visits to the Naples Zoological Station.

A man of independent wealth, he financed the founding of The Journal of Physiology, of which Foster was the first editor. He was also a founding member of The Physiological Society.[3] In 1878 Dew-Smith left scientific research, later launching the Cambridge Engraving Company, and establishing the Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company with Horace Darwin.[4][5][6][7] In 1884 he was elected a member of the Photographic Society of Great Britain.[8] He was also a fellow and life member of the Cambridge Philosophical Society.[9]

In 1895 he married Alice Lloyd, a New Zealand-born author; they had no children.[10] They lived at Chesterton Hall on Chesterton Road, Cambridge. He died at Fulham, London, and is buried in Histon Road Cemetery, Cambridge.[1][11]

Select photographs by A. G. Dew-Smith
Robert Louis Stevenson, writer, 1885
Sir George Edward Paget, MD
Mary Kingsley, writer and explorer

References
  1. According to Walford's County Families, Dew assumed the name of Smith by royal license in 1870 under the will of the late William Smith, Esq., a banker of Salisbury.[2]
  1. Viscomi, Joseph (2010). "Two Fake Blakes Revisited; One Dew-Smith Revealed". In Mulhallen, Karen (ed.). Blake in our Time: Essays in Honour of G.E. Bentley, Jr. University of Toronto Press. pp. 35–78. ISBN 9781442641518.
  2. Walford, Edward (1876). The County Families of the United Kingdom. London: Robert Hardwicke. p. 283.
  3. O'Connor, W. J. (1988). Founders of British Physiology: A Biographical Dictionary, 1820-1885. Manchester University Press. pp. 182–. ISBN 978-0-7190-2537-2.
  4. Geison, Gerald L. (2015). Michael Foster and the Cambridge School of Physiology: The Scientific Enterprise in Late Victorian Society. Princeton University Press. pp. 182–. ISBN 978-1-4008-6911-4.
  5. Wall, Wilson John (2016). The Search for Human Chromosomes: A History of Discovery. Springer. pp. 28–. ISBN 978-3-319-26336-6.
  6. Foster, Michael (30 April 1903). "In Memoriam, A. G. Dew Smith". The Cambridge Review. 24: 261–262.
  7. Cattermole, M.J.G. (1987). "The Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company from 1881 to 1968". IEE Proceedings A. 134 (4): 351–358. doi:10.1049/ip-a-1.1987.0054.
  8. "Proceedings of Societies". The Photographic News. 11 January 1884. p. 30.
  9. The Cambridge University Calendar for the Year 1896–1897. Cambridge: Deighton Bell & Co. 1896. p. 991.
  10. "A Database of Victorian Fiction". Retrieved 4 April 2018.
  11. "Dew, Albert George (DW868AG)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.


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