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Although few events in Smith's early childhood are known, the Scottish journalist John Rae, Smith's biographer, recorded that Smith was abducted by Romani at the age of three and released when others went to rescue him.
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Adam Smith was the son by the second marriage of Adam Smith, the comptroller of customs at Kirkcaldy, Scotland, a small (population 1,500) but thriving fishing village near Edinburgh, and Margaret Douglas, daughter of a substantial landowner. Smith’s father died five months before his birth, so he was brought up by his mother.
Where was Adam Smith educated?
Adam Smith received his elementary education at a two-room “burgh” school in Kirkcaldy, Scotland, before entering Glasgow College at age 14 in 1737. Graduating in 1740, Smith won a scholarship (the Snell Exhibition) to study at Balliol College, Oxford, which he attended for six years.
What was Adam Smith’s first job?
Returning to his home in Kirkcaldy, Scotland, in 1746 after six years of study at Oxford, Adam Smith cast about for suitable employment and through family connections received an opportunity to present a course of public lectures in Edinburgh on rhetoric and belles lettres.
What is Adam Smith best known for?
Much more is known about Adam Smith’s thought than about his life. He was the son by second marriage of Adam Smith, comptroller of customs at Kirkcaldy, a small (population 1,500) but thriving fishing village near Edinburgh, and Margaret Douglas, daughter of a substantial landowner. Of Smith’s childhood nothing is known other than that he received his elementary schooling in Kirkcaldy and that at the age of four years he was said to have been carried off by gypsies. Pursuit was mounted, and young Adam was abandoned by his captors. “He would have made, I fear, a poor gipsy,” commented the Scottish journalist John Rae (1845–1915), Smith’s principal biographer.
At the age of 14, in 1737, Smith entered the University of Glasgow, already remarkable as a centre of what was to become known as the Scottish Enlightenment. There he was deeply influenced by Francis Hutcheson, a famous professor of moral philosophy from whose economic and philosophical views he was later to diverge but whose magnetic character seems to have been a main shaping force in Smith’s development. Graduating in 1740, Smith won a scholarship (the Snell Exhibition) and traveled on horseback to Oxford, where he stayed at Balliol College. Compared with the stimulating atmosphere of Glasgow, Oxford was an educational desert. His years there were spent largely in self-education, from which Smith obtained a firm grasp of both classical and contemporary philosophy.
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Smith then entered upon a period of extraordinary creativity, combined with a social and intellectual life that he afterward described as “by far the happiest, and most honourable period of my life.” During the week he lectured daily from 7:30 to 8:30 am and again thrice weekly from 11 am to noon, to classes of up to 90 students, aged 14 to 16. (Although his lectures were presented in English rather than in Latin, following the precedent of Hutcheson, the level of sophistication for so young an audience strikes one today as extraordinarily demanding.) Afternoons were occupied with university affairs in which Smith played an active role, being elected dean of faculty in 1758; his evenings were spent in the stimulating company of Glasgow society.
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Among his wide circle of acquaintances were not only members of the aristocracy, many connected with the government, but also a range of intellectual and scientific figures that included Joseph Black, a pioneer in the field of chemistry; James Watt, later of steam-engine fame; Robert Foulis, a distinguished printer and publisher and subsequent founder of the first British Academy of Design; and, not least, the philosopher David Hume, a lifelong friend whom Smith had met in Edinburgh. Smith was also introduced during these years to the company of the great merchants who were carrying on the colonial trade that had opened to Scotland following its union with England in 1707. One of them, Andrew Cochrane, had been a provost of Glasgow and had founded the famous Political Economy Club. From Cochrane and his fellow merchants Smith undoubtedly acquired the detailed information concerning trade and business that was to give such a sense of the real world to The Wealth of Nations.
In 1778, Smith was appointed commissioner of customs in Edinburgh. In 1783, he became a founding member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He died in the city on 17 July 1790.
Dec 1, 2023 · Adam Smith died in Edinburgh on 17 July 1790. He was buried in the churchyard in the Canongate area of the Scottish capital close to where he had lived. Smith was one of the leading figures of the Enlightenment, and he has become one of the most quoted thinkers by economists ever since.
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Adam Smith died on 17 July 1790, in Edinburgh. His political and economic liberalism lived on to change the world. The most recent and authoritative biography of Adam Smith is Ian Simpson Ross The Life of Adam Smith (Clarendon Press, 1995).
Jul 17, 2016 · On this day in 1790 died the great Scottish economist Adam Smith. To us he is best known for his pioneering 1776 book An Inquiry Into The Nature And Causes Of The Wealth Of Nations – which he called simply his Inquiry, but which today is known as The Wealth of Nations.
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Aug 9, 2023 · Death. In 1787, Smith was named rector of the University of Glasgow, and he died just three years later, at the age of 67. QUICK FACTS. Name: Adam Smith. Birth Year: 1723. Birth date: June 5,...
