Appendix A
Timeline of Adam Smith's Life

1723

Born at Kirkcaldy, Scotland, a small seaport town opposite Edinburgh. Day of birth is unknown, but he is baptized June 5.

1726 (?)

Smith briefly kidnapped by gypsies, according to a contemporary biography by Dugald Stewart.

1737–40

Attends Glasgow University, where he is a student of the beloved Frances Hutchinson. Received M.A. degree with distinction.

1740–46

Destined for service in the Church of England, he attends Oxford University, which turns into a low period of his life. He apparently suffers a temporary nervous breakdown. He is reprimanded by his orthodox tutors for reading Hume's Treatise of Human Nature, and the book is seized. During this time, England is thrown into civil war (1745) by the Jacobite uprising, an attempt to put the Scottish Stuart Pretender, James III on the throne of England and restore the primacy of the pope. Scots are defiled in England, and Smith no doubt experiences some of this prejudice. He rejects the church life.

1746–48

Fresh with a university education but unemployed, Smith lives in Kirkcaldy with his mother and continues his studies privately.

1748–51

Smith becomes an entrepreneur of sorts, becoming a popular freelance lecturer in Edinburgh, where he enters into a deep and lifelong friendship with the most eminent philosopher of the age, David Hume.

1751–64

Elected a professor at Glasgow University, first in the Chair of Logic and Rhetoric, then in 1752 to the Chair in Moral Philosophy. The latter subject covers natural religion, ethics, jurisprudence, and political economy. Smith reports that these years were the "most useful" and "happiest" of his life (Ross, p. xxi). In 1759 he publishes The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Smith rises in the university's administration, serving as vice-rector, 1761–63.

1764–66

Smith accompanies Lord Townshend's stepson, the Duke of Buccleuch, on a foreign tour as his tutor. This is a productive period, both financially and intellectually. They live in Toulouse, Geneva, and Paris, where Smith meets with luminaries from the European Enlightenment and the Physiocrats. Among these are Voltaire, Quesnay, and Turgot.

Autumn 1765—Smith and his charge leave Toulouse for Geneva, where he meets Voltaire at Ferney.

January 1766—Hume and Rousseau leave Paris for London, and Smith arrives there soon after. Smith attends the opera season, sees Tom Jones, and mixes in the best salons of Paris.

October 1766—The Duke of Buccleuch's brother succumbs to fever and Smith immediately returns to London.

1766–67

Smith stays in London through the winter attending to Lord Townshend's research project on the national debt, which has ballooned during the Seven Years War. Townshend by this time is Chancellor of the Exchequer, an equivalent position to Treasury Secretary in the United States.

1767–73

Living off Townshend's annuity of £300 per year, Smith returns to his birthplace in Kirkcaldy, living in relative isolation with his mother and writing The Wealth of Nations.

1773–77

Smith travels for extended stays in London to be near his publisher. Smith hopes, through the publication of The Wealth of Nations (long delayed, and finally issued March 9, 1776), to influence Parliament to avoid bloodshed over the colonies in North America. Despite his influence with MP's on both sides of the aisle, Smith fails in his attempt to win them over to the merits of free trade.

Summer, 1776—Smith returns briefly to Scotland where his dear friend Hume is dying.

1777–78

Smith returns briefly to Kirkcaldy, entering temporary retirement, and amuses himself by writing a book on the arts.

1778–90

Moves with his mother to Edinburgh, where he accepts an appointment as Commissioner of Customs for Scotland, a job he fulfills with reasonable zeal. He continues issuing new editions of his books until his death, including a substantial revision of TMS published in May 1790. He dies July 17 of that same year.