The celebrated Scottish moral economist Adam Smith was a professor at the University of Glasgow (then known as the College of Glasgow, pictured below) from 1751 until early January 1764, when he abruptly left the college in the middle of the 1763-64 academic year to accompany the young 3rd Duke of Buccleuch on his grand tour. Below are some excerpts from Chapter 7 (“Glasgow Enigmas”) of my forthcoming survey of open Adam Smith problems with Salim Rashid (footnotes are below the fold):

Das Freihandelsproblem (the free trade problem). The Act of Union in 1707 not only united Scotland and England into Great Britain; it also lifted oppressive trade restrictions and opened new markets and trading opportunities for Scottish merchants. Glasgow experienced a significant period of prosperity due to its thriving trade with the North American colonies and became a bustling port city, surpassing other British ports like London and Bristol.[1] This prosperity led to the rise of powerful merchants, collectively known as the Tobacco Lords.[2] By 1770, on the eve of the American Revolution, Glasgow was the primary entrepot for Virginian tobacco, much of which was then re-exported to Europe. But did Smith become a free trader during his Glasgow period? Did he ever lecture on the doctrine of free trade, either at the University of Glasgow (1751-1764) or at one of the several private clubs that he was a member of, such as the storied Anderston Club of Glasgow or the Select Society of Edinburgh?[3] Or did Smith first embrace free trade during his extended visit to France (1764-66) or during the time he spent writing and revising The Wealth of Nations (1767-1776)?[4] 

Das Shelburne-Problem. In addition to his regular teaching and administrative duties at the University of Glasgow, why did Adam Smith also agree to take into his home and personally tutor Thomas Fitzmaurice from 1759 to 1761? During this time, Smith corresponded with Fitzmaurice’s older brother, Lord Shelburne, over a dozen times.[5] Considering that Smith was a rather stingy correspondent (he wrote less than 200 of his letters during his entire lifetime!), his correspondence with Lord Shelburne and the responsibility of tutoring his son must have consumed a lot of Smith’s time. Why on Earth did Smith accept this responsibility? Was it to ingratiate himself with Fitzmaurice’s father: John Petty Fitzmaurice, 1st Earl of Shelburne? Was it on account of Lord Shelburne’s wealth and position as a member of the British aristocracy? Did he owe him a favor, perhaps? Also, how many other students, if any, did Smith tutor or take at his home during his Glasgow period, and how much time and effort did this take?

Das Snell-Problem. According to John Rae (1965/1895, pp. 152-153), in June of 1761 the faculty senate of Glasgow University authorized Adam Smith to conduct some business in London on behalf of the university regarding a pending lawsuit involving the Snell Exhibition. In addition, Rae mentions that “on the 15th of October [1761], after his return [from London], he [Smith] reported what he had done [to the faculty senate], and produced a certificate, signed by the Secretary to the Treasury.”[6] Where is that certificate? How long did Smith stay in London, and what other business, if any, did he conduct during this trip? In addition, what was the outcome of this new round of litigation, and why didn’t the previous round of litigation bring the perennial legal controversies surrounding the Snell Exhibition to an end? (In legal speak, why wasn’t the court’s previous decision from the 1740s res judicata?) Are there any additional extant documents (correspondence, receipts, etc.) from Smith’s 1761 trip to London?

Das Hochschulabschluss Problem: Why was Smith awarded an LL.D. degree in October 1762? The University of Glasgow decided to confer on Adam Smith the degree of Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) in October of 1762.[7] Why? In the minutes of the meeting in which the award of Smith’s degree was formally approved, it is reported that Smith’s degree was awarded in recognition of his “universally acknowledged reputation in letters” as well as his success in teaching jurisprudence at the university for many years with “great applause and advantages to the Society.”[8] But given that Smith had already been teaching for over ten years and given that The Theory of Moral Sentiments had been published in 1759, why was the degree not awarded earlier? Also, regardless of the timing of this decision, whose idea was it that Smith should be awarded a degree? Was it Smith himself who asked to be awarded a degree? Or was it the University of Glasgow’s regular policy to award honorary degrees to its own faculty members after, say, 10 years of service or after the publication of an important work?

[1] See generally Devine 1975.

[2] Ibid.

[3] See generally Rashid 1996.

[4] According to our reading of John Rae’s 1895 biography of Smith, Rae shows no conversion to the doctrine of free trade during Smith’s formative years (1735-1760).

[5] See Corr. Nos. 29, 30, 35, 37, 42, 43, 45, 46, 48, 49, 51, 52, and 53. According to Rae (1965/1895, p. 58), Thomas Fitzmaurice was Lord Shelburne’s younger brother.

[6] Rae 1965/1895, p. 153.

[7] For reference, this decision is recorded in the Dean of Faculty’s meeting minutes, dated 21st October 1762. See GUAS Ref: GUA 26645, p. 110, available online at https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/archivespecialcollections/digitisedcollections/smith/photogallery/honorarydegree/.

[8] Ibid.