George Frederick Herbert Smith

George Frederick Herbert Smith CBE (26 May 1872 – 20 April 1953) was a British mineralogist who worked for the British Museum (Natural History). He discovered the mineral paratacamite in 1906, and developed a jeweller's refractometer for the rapid identification of gems. The minerals smithite and herbertsmithite are named after him, as is Herbert's rock-wallaby.

Career

Smith was born in 1872, went to school at Winchester College and then to New College, Oxford. In Oxford, he studied mathematics from 1891 to 1895, gaining first class marks, and then graduated in physics in 1896. Smith was appointed as an assistant in the British Museum (Natural History) in December 1896. He worked in the mineralogy department of the museum until 1921, when he became assistant secretary of the museum, succeeding Charles E. Fagan.

In his mineralogical career, Smith worked on topics including the determination of mineral structures and compositions. He wrote papers on the structure of the gold telluride mineral calaverite (AuTe2); and he described the new copper-zinc oxychloride mineral paratacamite. Smith also developed new instruments for the practical measurement of the crystallographic and optical features of minerals and gems (goniometers and a refractometer), and wrote a text book on gemstones and gemmology that was first published in 1912, and went through many editions, with the thirteenth edition published posthumously after revisions by F.C. Phillips 1958.

In his role as secretary of the museum, he oversaw the expansion of the museum and the creation of new buildings for the department of entomology; and he was in charge of the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Natural History museum in 1931. He also started the practice of selling postcards of museum items, and established a sports club for the staff of the museum. He served as secretary of the museum until 1935, before returning to the mineralogical department for two years before retirement. He retired in 1937.