Albert George Dew-Smith
Albert George Dew-Smith 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. He attended Trinity College, Cambridge, earning a B.A. and M.A.. 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. In 1878 Dew-Smith left scientific research, later launching the Cambridge Engraving Company, and establishing the Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company with Horace Darwin.
In 1884 he was elected a member of the Photographic Society of Great Britain. He was also a fellow and life member of the Cambridge Philosophical Society.
In 1895 he married Alice Lloyd, a New Zealand-born author; they had no children. They lived at Chesterton Hall on Chesterton Road, Cambridge. He died at Fulham, London, and is buried in Histon Road Cemetery, Cambridge.
