George Adam Smith

He was born in Calcutta, where his father, George Smith, C.I.E., was then Principal of the Doveton College, a boys' school in Madras. His mother was Janet Colquhoun Smith (née Adam).[1] By 1870 the family had returned to Scotland and were living at Scagore House in Seafield, Edinburgh.

He was educated at Edinburgh in the Royal High School.

He then studied Divinity at the University of Edinburgh and the New College, graduating MA in 1875.

After studying for summer semesters as a postgraduate at the University of Tübingen (1876) and the University of Leipzig (1878) and travelling in Egypt and Syria. He was ordained into the Free Church of Scotland in 1882 and served at the Queen's Cross Free Church in Aberdeen.[2]

In 1892 he was appointed Professor of Hebrew[3] and Old Testament subjects in the Free Church College at Glasgow. In 1900 (at its creation) he moved from the Free Church of Scotland to the United Free Church of Scotland.[4]

In 1909 he was appointed Principal and Vice Chancellor of the University of Aberdeen, a post he held until his retirement in 1935. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1916, and was knighted in the same year.[5]

He served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the United Free Church of Scotland in 1916-17.[6] In 1917 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were John Horne, Cargill Gilston Knott, Ben Peach and John Sutherland Black.[7]

He was appointed a Chaplain-in-Ordinary to King George V in 1933,[8] and reappointed by King Edward VIII[9] and King George VI.[10]

From 1924 to 1938 he was Patron of the Seven Incorporated Trades of Aberdeen.[11]

He died at home, "Sweethillocks" in Balerno south-west of Edinburgh on 3 March 1942. He is buried with his wife and children in the north-east corner of Currie Cemetery in south-west Edinburgh.

Most of his papers are held in the National Library of Scotland, in Edinburgh.[12]

• The Book of Isaiah (2 vols)
• The Book of the Twelve Prophets (2 vols)
• Modern Criticism and Preaching of the Old Testament
• The Forgiveness of Sins
• Four Psalms
• The Life of Henry Drummond

His Atlas of the Historical Geography of the Holy Land (HGHL), published in London in 1915, remains a standard reference book until today.

In 1889 he married Alice Lillian Buchanan (1866-1949), daughter of Sir George Buchanan MD FRS.[13] They had seven children:

• George Buchanan Smith (1890-1915);
• Robert Dunlop Smith (1892-1917);
• Lilian May Buchanan Drew (1894-1980);
• Alick Buchanan-Smith, Baron Balerno (1898-1984);
• Kathleen Paget Thomson (1900-1941), married George Paget Thomson;
• Janet Adam Smith (1905-1999);
• Margaret Buchanan Smith Clarke (1910-2000).

• The Book of Isaiah (The Expositor’s Bible) (Vol.1., 1888)
• The Book of Isaiah (The Expositor’s Bible) (Vol.2., 1890)
• The Preaching of the Old Testament to the Age (1893)
• The Historical Geography of the Holy Land (1894)
• Four Psalms: XXIII, XXXVI, LII, CXXI, Interpreted for Practical Use (1896)
• The Book of the Twelve Prophets (The Expositor’s Bible) (2 vols., 1896, 1898)
• The Life of Henry Drummond (1899).
• Modern Criticism and Preaching of the Old Testament (1901)
• Encyclopaedia Biblica (contributor) (1903)
• The Forgiveness of Sins, and other Sermons (1905)
• Jerusalem: The Topography, Economics and History from the Earliest Times to A.D. 70 (Vol 1., 1907)
• Jerusalem: The Topography, Economics and History from the Earliest Times to A.D. 70 (Vol 2., 1907)
• The Early Poetry of Israel in its Physical and Social Origins (the Schweich Lectures for 1910)
• War and peace: Two Sermons in King’s College Chapel, University of Aberdeen (1915)
• Atlas of the Historical Geography of the Holy Land (HGHL; 1915)
• Syria and the Holy Land (1918)
• The Book of Deuteronomy, in the Revised Version, with Introduction and Notes (1918)
• Our Common Conscience: Addresses delivered in America during the Great War (1919)
• Jeremiah (the Baird Lecture for 1922)
• The Kirk in Scotland 1560 – 1929 (with John Buchan) (1930)
• The Legacy of Israel (with others) (1944)
• The Book of the Twelve Prophets (1906)

• Iain D. Campbell, Fixing the Indemnity: The Life and Work of Sir George Adam Smith (1856-1942) (Carlyle, Paternoster Press, 2004) (Paternoster Theological Monographs - PTM).

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Smith, George Adam". Encyclopædia Britannica. 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 261.

• Works by George Adam Smith at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about George Adam Smith at Internet Archive