Smith, Adam (1723-1790: political economist, Rector, University of Glasgow

Adam Smith was born in Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland, in 1723 . He attended the University of Glasgow, Scotland, from the age of 14 where he was greatly influenced by Francis Hutcheson who held the Chair of Moral Philosophy there. In 1744, Adam Smith won the Snell Exhibition to the University of Oxford, England, where he claimed he learned very little. He returned to Glasgow, being elected to the Chair of Logic at the University of Glasgow in 1751 and transferring to the Chair of Moral Philosophy the following year. His lectures covered the field of ethics, rhetoric, jurisprudence and political economy. He held this position for 13 years, claiming them to be by far the most useful and therefore as by far the happiest and most honourable period of my life . Glasgow at this time was a thriving mercantile centre with the Tobacco Lords at the apex of its society and in whose clubs and coffee-houses he was able to cultivate the acquaintances of businessmen and test his ideas against practical knowledge. He resigned from the Chair of Moral Philosophy in 1764 to become tutor to the Duke of Buccleuch on his Grand Tour, a much more lucrative post that gave him a position for life. The post allowed him to meet many of Europe's most notable people, including Voltaire. Smith returned to Kirkcaldy in 1767 to concentrate on his writing, and subsequently, in 1776, he moved to London where he published his major work, The Wealth of Nations ( 1776 ). This work was immediately, and still remains to be, recognised as one of the seminal works of European philosophy, establishing political economy as a subject of study in its own right. Smith established his reputation as a moral philosopher with A Theory of Moral Sentiments in 1759, and insisted that a framework of moral obligation underlined all his thinking. In 1778 he was appointed Commissioner of Customs for Scotland and he was elected Rector of the University of Glasgow, 1787-1789 . He died in Edinburgh, Scotland, in July 1790 .