Adam Smith: English Men of Letters

Adam Smith was born on June 5, 1723, in the “lang toun” of Kirkcaldy. It was one of the “mony royal boroughs yoked on end to end like ropes of ingans, with their hie-streets and their booths, and their kraemes and houses of stane and lime and forestairs,” which led Andrew Fairservice to contrast “the kingdom of Fife” with the inferior county of Northumberland; nay, it furnished him with a special boast, “Kirkcaldy, the sell o’t, is langer than ony toun in England.” It had been a royal borough from the time of Charles I., and had declined, like many other Scotch towns, in the religious wars of the seventeenth century. Many of its citizens who had fought for the Covenant had fallen on the fatal field of Tippermuir. But it still contained about 1500 inhabitants, who were variously employed as colliers, fishermen, salters, nailmakers, and smugglers. From the harbour you might walk a mile or more westward along the High Street, enjoying from time to time a glimpse of the sea and shelving beach, where the line of shops opened for a narrow “wynd,” or a still narrower “close” threaded the high-walled gardens of a few substantial houses. In one of these Adam Smith wrote the Wealth of Nations, and probably in one of these he was born. The father, who died a few weeks before the birth of his only child, had been a leading townsman. Adam Smith the elder was a man of note in his own day. From 1707 to his death he was a Writer, i.e. solicitor, and Judge Advocate for Scotland. He had acted as private secretary to Lord Loudon, then Minister for Scotland; and Loudon, on leaving office in 1713, obtained for his secretary the Comptrollership of Customs at Kirkcaldy—a post worth about £100 a year.

His widow lived to a great age, and saw her boy rise step by step to the fulness of fame. She is said to have been an over-indulgent mother; but her devotion was repaid by the life-long love of a most tender son. Mrs. Smith’s maiden name was Margaret Douglas, and she was the daughter of the Laird of Strathendry, in the county of Fife. At Strathendry the future economist had a narrow escape; for one day as he played at the door he was picked up and carried off by a party of vagrant tinkers. Luckily he was soon missed, pursued and overtaken in Leslie Wood; and thus, in the grandiose dialect of Dugald Stewart, there was preserved to the world “a genius, which was destined, not only to extend the boundaries of science, but to enlighten and reform the commercial policy of Europe.”

The next landmark in the boy’s history is a copy of Eutropius, on the fly-leaf of which is inscribed in a childish hand, “Adam Smith, his book, May 4th, 1733.” Before his tenth birthday, therefore, he had already made some progress in Latin. The Burgh School of Kirkcaldy, which he attended, was a good grammar school of the kind that already abounded in Scotland. It was patronised by the Oswalds of Dunnikier, the principal people of the neighbourhood. James Oswald, who soon made a mark in politics, was Smith’s senior by some years, but they became life-long friends. Robert Adams, the architect who planned Edinburgh University, was another friend and schoolfellow; and so was John Drysdale, who twice held the helm of the Scotch Church as Moderator of its General Assembly. In 1734 the schoolboys played a moral piece written for the purpose by the head master, David Millar. As a teacher he had a considerable reputation, but as a dramatist he will be judged by the title of his play, “A Royal Counsel for Advice; or Regular Education for Boys the Foundation of all other Improvements.” Adam Smith soon attracted notice at school “by his passion for books and by the extraordinary powers of his memory.” Too weak and delicate to join in active games, he was yet popular with his schoolfellows; for his temper, “though warm, was to an uncommon degree friendly and generous.” In company his absentmindedness was often noticed, and this habit, with a trick of talking to himself, clung to him to the end.