Adam Smith

Early life

Adam Smith was born to Margaret Douglas at Kirkcaldy, Scotland. His father, also named Adam Smith, was a lawyer, civil servant, and widower who married Margaret Douglas in 1720. His father died six months before Smith's birth. The exact date of Smith's birth is unknown; however, his baptism was recorded on 16 June 1723 at Kirkcaldy. Though few events in Smith's early childhood are known, Scottish journalist and biographer of Smith John Rae recorded that Smith was abducted by gypsies at the age of four and eventually released when others went to rescue him.

Smith was particularly close to his mother, and it was likely she who encouraged him to pursue his scholarly ambitions. Smith attended the Burgh School of Kirkcaldy from 1729 to 1737, and there studied Latin, mathematics, history, and writing. Rae characterized the Burgh School as "one of the best secondary schools of Scotland at that period".

Formal education

A commemorative plaque for Adam Smith is located at Smith's home town of Kirkcaldy.

Smith entered the University of Glasgow when he was fourteen and studied moral philosophy under Francis Hutcheson.[7] Here he developed his passion for liberty, reason, and free speech. In 1740, Smith was awarded the Snell exhibition and left the University of Glasgow to attend Balliol College, Oxford.[8]

Smith considered the teaching at Glasgow to be far superior to that at Oxford, and found his Oxford experience intellectually stifling.[9] In Book V, Chapter II of The Wealth of Nations, Smith wrote: "In the University of Oxford, the greater part of the public professors have, for these many years, given up altogether even the pretence of teaching." Smith is also reported to have complained to friends that Oxf...

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...3] Five years later, he became one of the founding members of the Royal Society of Edinburgh,[34] and from 1787 to 1789 he occupied the honorary position of Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow.[35] He died in Edinburgh on 17 July 1790 after a painful illness and was buried in the Canongate Kirkyard.[36] On his death bed, Smith expressed disappointment that he had not achieved more.[37]

Smith's literary executors were two friends from the Scottish academic world: the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, and the pioneering geologist James Hutton.[38] Smith left behind many notes and some unpublished material, but gave instructions to destroy anything that was not fit for publication.[39] He mentioned an early unpublished History of Astronomy as probably suitable, and it duly appeared in 1795, along with other material such as Essays on Philosophical Subjects.[38]