William S. Clark

William Smith Clark (1826 to 1886) was an American chemist, botanist and soldier who became a leading figure in agricultural education. Born at Ashfield, Massachusetts, he graduated from Amherst College, took a doctorate in chemistry at Göttingen in 1852 and was professor of chemistry at Amherst College until 1867, heading a short lived Division of Science for the study of agriculture from 1853. He served as a colonel in the Civil War. In 1867 he became the third president of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, now the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he appointed the first faculty and admitted the first class. In 1876 the Japanese government hired him as an advisor to establish the Sapporo Agricultural College, now Hokkaido University, and during eight months in Sapporo he left a lasting mark on Japan. After leaving academia he led a mining company whose collapse ruined his finances and health, and he died at Amherst in 1886.