Scottish Enlightenment Tour
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1. James Court, Edinburgh Old Town The buildings at the back of Gladstone’s Land date to the 16th century and give a feel of the crowded Old Town of the 18th century. Read more… |
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2. Statue of David Hume David Hume (1711–76), incongruously portrayed in this statue as an ancient Greek philosopher rather than a mid-eighteenth-century man of letters, is perhaps the best known figure of the Scottish Enlightenment. Read more… |
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3. Execution of Thomas Aikenhead The story of Thomas Aikenhead shows how much Scotland had changed in the 50 years between the end of the 17th century and the period of the Scottish Enlightenment. Read more… |
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4. Statue of Adam Smith The great economic theorist Adam Smith was born in Kirkcaldy in 1723. Read more… |
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5. Grave of Archibald Pitcairne There has been much debate among historian about the extent ot which the Scottish Enlightenment was a consequence of the Union with England in 1707. Read more… |
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6. Grave of William Smellie William Smellie was a printer, naturalist and friend of the poet Robert Burns at the height of the Scottish Enlightenment. Read more… |
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7. The Meadows This large public park used to be a lake known as the South Loch until the early eighteenth century. Read more… |
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8. Adam Ferguson’s House (Sciennes Hill House) 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. Read more… |
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9. The Oyster Club This weekly dining club for scientists and philosophers met regularly throughout the 1770s. Read more… |
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10. Site of Boyd’s Inn This pub was where James Boswell, Edinburgh lawyer and biographer of Samuel Johnson, met up with Johnson before they embarked on their famous tour of the Hebrides in 1773. Read more… |
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11. Site of the first theatre in Edinburgh In the seventeenth century the Church of Scotland had traditionally taken a very negative view of the theatre, which they saw as promoting immorality. Read more… |
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12. Site of the house of Lord Monboddo James Burnett, Lord Monboddo (1714–99), was a judge and pioneer of comparative linguistics. Read more… |
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13. Statue and grave of Robert Fergusson Writing in English and Scots, the poet Robert Fergusson lived in Edinburgh at the height of the Scottish Enlightenment. Read more… |
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14. Tomb of David Hume David Hume’s two key works, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40) and An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), are still studied by students of philosophy today. Read more… |
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15. Dugald Stewart monument This striking monument, based on a circular Greek Temple, commemorates one of the last important figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, the philosopher and professor of moral philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, Dugald Stewart. Read more… |
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16. John Playfair memorial Mathematician, physicist and geologist, John Playfair is perhaps best known as James Hutton’s most influential disciple. Read more… |