Adam Smith was the father of modern economics, the philosopher of the Scottish Enlightenment whose great book The Wealth of Nations laid the foundations of the subject. Though he was born in Fife, it was at the University of Glasgow that he studied, taught and did his finest work, and the bustling commerce of the city shaped his thinking.
A Fife boy at Glasgow
Born in Kirkcaldy in 1723, the son of a customs official who died before he was born, Smith entered the University of Glasgow at just fourteen, where he studied moral philosophy under the great Francis Hutcheson. A scholarship then took him on to Oxford, which he found far inferior to the Glasgow of his youth, part of the city’s long story in education.
Professor at Glasgow
In 1751 Smith returned to Glasgow as a professor, first of logic and then of moral philosophy, and he later called these thirteen years ‘by far the happiest and most honourable period’ of his life. It was here, out of his Glasgow lectures, that he wrote his first masterpiece, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, in 1759, and students came from across Europe to hear him, as we note in our post on the University of Glasgow.
The merchant city and the Wealth of Nations
Glasgow in Smith’s day was booming on the Atlantic trade of its Tobacco Lords, and the workings of that great commercial city fed directly into his economic thinking. After resigning his chair in 1764 to tutor a young duke on a tour of Europe, where he met Voltaire and the French economists, he retired to Kirkcaldy and spent a decade writing.
The father of economics
The Wealth of Nations appeared in 1776 and was an instant success. In it Smith set out the principles of the free market, the division of labour and the ‘invisible hand’ by which individuals pursuing their own interest can benefit society as a whole. It founded economics as a discipline and helped to shape the modern world.
A lasting legacy
Smith became Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow in his final years, and died in Edinburgh in 1790. His face has since appeared on both Scottish and English banknotes, and in 2023 the University of Glasgow marked the three-hundredth anniversary of his birth. He remains a towering figure of the city’s intellectual culture.
Related questions
Who was Adam Smith?
The Scottish philosopher and economist, often called the father of economics, who wrote The Wealth of Nations and was a professor at the University of Glasgow.
What is Adam Smith famous for?
His book The Wealth of Nations, which founded modern economics, and for ideas such as the free market, the division of labour and the ‘invisible hand’.
What was Adam Smith’s connection to Glasgow?
He studied at the University of Glasgow and was later Professor of Moral Philosophy there for thirteen years, which he called the happiest of his life, and was its Lord Rector.
Was Adam Smith born in Glasgow?
No. He was born in Kirkcaldy in Fife, but Glasgow was where he studied, taught, and developed the ideas that made his name.