ABSTRACT
Adam Smith's contribution to Glasgow in the session 1750/1 was to attend meetings only. Smith, who enjoyed the support of Lord Kames and the Duke of Argyll, was appointed unanimously in an election concluded so expeditiously that it left little evidence on the University records. Smith's interest in his pupils also spread beyond their academic welfare. By early 1759 young Thomas Petty-Fitzmaurice was in Glasgow and the first of several complimentary reports from Smith began to go south. The man appointed at Glasgow, Clow, though to later generations not comparable to David Hume, was someone of wide intellectual distinction, linked with the Glasgow academic community in his work on Robert Simson. Though Smith had reservations about Humes suitability for appointment to a chair in Glasgow, shortly afterwards Hume wanted Smith in Edinburgh as part of a general deployment of his friends.
