Ian Simpson Ross

Ian Simpson Ross (9 August 1930 – 21 May 2015^[1]) was a Scottish academic and biographer of Adam Smith.^[2][3]

He was born in Dundee. His father worked in the jute industry and his mother was employed in service. He was educated at Blackness Primary School and was awarded a bursary to Harris Academy.^[3][2] In 1950 he went to the University of St Andrews to read English literature after being awarded a state grant. He was awarded a first class honours degree in 1954.^[2][4] He was granted a Tyndall-Bruce Scholarship at Merton College, Oxford, where he studied the Scottish poets at James VI's court under the supervision of David Nichol Smith.^[3][2][5] He was awarded a BLitt in 1956.^[4] He won a Fulbright Scholarship at the University of Texas, where he read his PhD. Under the supervision of Ernest Campbell Mossner, Ross focused on important members of the Scottish Enlightenment,^[3][2] and was awarded his PhD in 1960.^[4]

He was appointed Instructor at the University of British Columbia, where he taught eighteenth-century literature. In 1982 he became head of the English department and in 1993 he was appointed Professor Emeritus of English.^[3][2] He was also elected to a Fellowship of the Royal Society of Canada.^[4]

His first book was a biography of Lord Kames, which was published in 1972, and he also penned a study of William Dunbar (1981).^[6][7]

His 1995 biography of Adam Smith was the first full-scale biography since John Rae's 1895 work.^[8] It was well received and the second edition was published in 2010. Gavin Kennedy said "Ian was the doyen among Adam Smith's modern scholarly biographers. His biography will never be surpassed."^[2] In his review, William D. Grampp said Ross' "scholarship is a thing of wonder."^[9]

He visited Scotland during the 2014 independence referendum and was a supporter of Scottish independence.^[2] In 2015 he died in Vancouver, aged 84, and was survived by his wife and their five children.^[3]

Works

• Lord Kames and the Scotland of His Day. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1972. ISBN 0198223617 – via Internet Archive.
• Mossner, Ernest Campbell; Ross, Ian Simpson, eds. (1987). The Correspondence of Adam Smith (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198285701 – via Internet Archive.
• Smith, Adam (1980). Wightman, W. P. D.; Bryce, J. C.; Ross, Ian Simpson (eds.). Essays on Philosophical Subjects with Dugald Stewart's Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0198281870 – via Internet Archive.
• William Dunbar. Leiden: Brill. 1981. ISBN 9004062165 – via Internet Archive.
• The Life of Adam Smith (2nd ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. 2010. ISBN 0199550034 – via Internet Archive.
• Ross, Ian Simpson, ed. (1998). On the Wealth of Nations: Contemporary Responses to Adam Smith. Bristol: Theommes Press. ISBN 1855065665 – via Internet Archive.