Adam Smith statue in Edinburgh
Ever seen Finding Nemo? Finding Adam Smith wasn’t as epic so don’t get your hopes up. There were no seagulls that went “mine! mine!” and there wasn’t a turtle that said “dude” a lot. What was there? Me, Anna, and a day in Edinburgh.
If you’re an econ/business student…If you’re alive and breathing..you probably know Adam Smith wrote The Wealth Of Nations (which is considered the foundation of modern economics).
Fact: Smith was Scottish.
Fact: He was buried in Canongate Cemetery in 1790.
Fact: I was determined to find him! After having basically read Wealth of Nations in my years in college, I had to pay my respects.
Okay, good. So Smith is supposed to be buried in a tiny cemetery behind some museum. I thought maybe you had to go through the museum to get to the grave (would be clever to make money!) but the gates to the church and cemetery were just swinging open. We went in and in the middle of the gravel path was this:
Smith can’t possibly be buried under a stone smaller than a brick?!!? Maybe his grave had been there but they re-did the cemetery since the 1790s and his grave had to be turned into a path? These were my legitimate thoughts.
Not willing to give up though, we poked around the cemetery a bit more…
Basically acting like the biggest creeps ever, we searched almost every tombstone looking for Smith’s. I thought there would be big neon signs over it or something…but no. That little brick really must be where Smith was buried! So I took the obligatory thumbs-up photo and called it a victory. (Excuse the dumb look on my face…That’s happy Adam Smith face!)
As we were walking out of the cemetery though…..we stumbled across this (fairly close to the gates)…Smith can’t be buried under TWO tiny bricks. Something’s not right here……
So our second great adventure started…to find where Smith was really buried (in pt 2). I can’t believe I accepted defeat that easily and made myself believe that one of the greatest economists in the world was buried under a brick. Pshaw.