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Sir James Edward Smith ( December 2, 1759 - March 17, 1828) was an English botanist.

Smith was born in Norwich in 1759, the son of a wealthy wool merchant. He displayed a precocious interest in natural history and botany, studied medicine and botany at Edinburgh in 1781, and moved to London in 1783 to continue his studies. Smith was a friend of Sir Joseph Banks who was offered the entire collection of books, manuscripts and specimens of the Swedish natural historian and botanist Carolus Linnaeus. Banks declined the purchase but Smith bought the Linnean Collection for the bargain price of £1000. The Collection arrived in London in 1784 and in 1786 Smith was elected Fellow of the Royal Society.

Between 1786 and 1788 Smith travelled the Grand Tour through the NetherlandsDutch redirects here. For other uses, see Dutch (disambiguation). The Netherlands ( Dutch: Nederland is the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, a constitutional monarchy. It is located in northwestern Europe and borders the North Sea, Belgium, FranceThe French Republic or France ( French: Republique francaise or France is a country whose metropolitan territory is located in western Europe, and which is further made up of a collection of overseas islands and territories located in other continents., ItalyThe Italian Republic or Italy ( Italian: Italia is a country in the south of Europe, consisting mainly of a boot-shaped peninsula together with two large islands in the Mediterranean Sea: Sicily and Sardinia. To the north, where it borders France, Switzer and SwitzerlandThe Swiss Confederation or Switzerland is a landlocked federal state in central Europe, with neighbours Germany, France, Italy, Austria and Liechtenstein. The country has a strong tradition of political and military neutrality, but also of international c visiting botanists, picture galleries and herbariaIn Botany, a herbarium is a collection of preserved plants or plant parts, mainly in a dried form. These specimens are often used as the reference material to define a plant taxon; they contain the holotypes for these plants. A herbarium can also be a bui. He founded the Linnean Society of London in 1788 becoming its first President, a post he held until his death. He returned to live in Norwich in 1796 bringing with him the entire Linnean Collection. His libraryAlternative meanings: Library (computer science), Library (biology In its traditional sense, a library is a collection of books. It can refer to an individual's private collection, but more often, it is a large collection that is funded and maintained by and botanical collections acquired European fame and were visited by numerous entomologistsEntomology is the scientific study of insects. Insects have many kinds of interactions with humans and other forms of life on earth, so it is an important specialty within biology; unlike many other fields however, entomologists include both persons study and botanists throughout the Continent.

Smith spent the remaining thirty years of his life writing books and articles upon botany. His books included Flora Britannica and The English Flora (4 volumes, 1824-1828). He contributed 3,348 botanical articles to Rees's Cyclopaedia between 1808-1819, following the death of Rev. William Wood, who had started the work.

After Smith's death the Linnean Collection, together with Smith's own collections, were bought by the Linnean Society for £3,150.