Smellie W
ACHIEVEMENT(S): Compiled the first edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: 1740, Edinburgh, Scotland
DATE/PLACE/AGE AT DEATH: June 24, 1795, Edinburgh, Scotland. Aged 55
DISCIPLINE: Printer
FIELD: Publishing
LANGUAGE: English
PARENTS: Alexander Smellie; mother's name not known
SIBLINGS: John, Anne, Helen, Elizabeth
SPOUSE: Jean Robertson
CHILDREN: Alexander, one of 4 sons, succeeded Smellie in the printing
business; Rebecca, one of four daughters, married the portrait-painter George Watson.
EDUCATION: Duddingstone village school; Edinburgh Grammar School; lectures
at Edinburgh University
MAJOR WORK: First edition of Encyclopedia Britannica
LIFE AND TIMES:
When Smellie was 19, his apprenticeship at an Edinburgh printer’s expired, and he began editing a literary weekly: "Scot's Magazine." In printing circles, Smellie had become known as a "clean setter", i.e. someone whose work was uncommonly neat and accurate, and required few corrections.
In 1760, at 20, Smellie became one of the founders of the Newtonian Society, a self-improvement group that met weekly. In the same year, he took up botany, establishing a considerable herbarium. In 1765, he won a gold medal for his "Dissertation on the Sexes of Plants", which questioned the basic theories of Swedish botanist Linnaeus* .
In 1775 Smellie became a master printer to the University, going into business with William Auld and John Balfour, and publishing "Weekly Journal", a compilation of news and philosophical discussion.
In 1766 engraver Andrew Bell asked Smellie to take charge of a project that was to become the "Encyclopedia Brittanica". Bell and printer Colin Macfarquhar had been impressed by the success of Diderot’s* French "Encyclopedie", and had solicited subscribers for a similar English volume that would contain lengthy essays and treatises on the arts and sciences, rather than merely brief definitions.
Bell asked Smellie to take responsibility for "fifteen capital sciences" and "likewise to prepare the whole work for the press". Smellie was delighted to accept the task and produced a synthesis of current knowledge. It was a novel work in that it not only gave comprehensive treatises on major subjects, but also shorter, dictionary-type articles on technical terms and other topics.
Smellie listed more than 150 principal sources, including Francis Bacon*'s "Essays", John Balfour's philosophical writings, Ephraim Chambers* "Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences", Hume*'s essays, Locke*'s essays on human understanding. and Voltaire*'s essays on taste.
The encyclopedia was issued in three instalments: ("Aa" to "Bzo" in 1768; "Caaba" to "Lythrum" in 1769; and "Macao to Zyglophyllum" in 1771.) Some of Smellie’s editorial decisions were curious: "Poetry" was discussed in only 500 words, and "Drama" in seven lines. 39 pages were devoted to a discussion of the art of curing the diseases of horses. Some buyers reacted angrily to the inclusion of "Midwifery", particularly to the three accompanying pages of copperplate engravings showing in clinical detail the exact processes involved in normal and abnormal deliveries of babies.
The first edition of the Encyclopedia brought no great riches to Bell, Macfarquhar or Smellie.
Smellie also studied French so he could translate Buffon*'s "Natural History of the Earth and of Men and Quadrupeds". He was engrossed in this task when Bell and Macfarquhar, early in 1776, approached him again to be editor of a second edition of the
Encyclopedia, but Smellie turned it down.
In 1780, Smellie was a co-founder of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and in 1781, became keeper and superintendent of the Edinburgh Museum of Natural History. His translation of Buffon was published in 1781, after which wrote "The Philosophy of Natural History" in two volumes, in 1790 and 1799.
Smellie co-founded the Crochallan Club (members were known as the "Crochallan Fencibles"), which met periodically in the tavern of Downey Douglas, in Anchor Close. Politicians, artists, writers, philosophers and professors were guest speakers. The post- speech question periods were raucous affairs, generally characterized by verbal assaults on the guest speakers. Smellie chaired these sessions. In 1787, he invited his friend, poet Robert Burns* to the club.
Smellie died after a long illness.
ASSESSMENT: Smellie’s idea of an encyclopedia that would digest the principles of every science in the form of systems or distinct treatises was a revolution in encyclopedia publishing.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: None
ONELINER: William Smellie, editor of first Encyclopedia Britannica
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
EB, DNB
Kerr, Robert, Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Correspondence of William Smellie, Vol. 1, Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1996
Kogan, Herman, The Great EB: The Story of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958.