3 Sciennes House Place, Edinburgh EH9 1NN
Adam Ferguson was professor of moral philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, and, as the author of the Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767), is often considered one of the founders of sociology. He regularly entertained many of the leading figures of the Scottish Enlightenment at his house in Sciennes. In Ferguson’s day the house was on the very edge of the city and, because of its remoteness, his friends jokingly referred to it as ‘Kamchatka’ after the peninsula in Siberia. In the winter of 1786/7 he hosted a dinner here at which the two most famous Scottish writers of the period, Robert Burns and the young Walter Scott, met for the first and only time.
Portrait of Adam Ferguson (1723–1816) by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Plaque commemorating the meeting of Robert Burns and Walter Scott at the house of Adam Ferguson.
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