WILLIAM SMART
THE father of Professor Smart was Mr. Alexander Smart, senior partner of the
great Mile-end thread making firm of John Clark, Jun., & Co. Dr. Smart was born
in 1853 and educated at Glasgow High School and University, where he graduated
M.A. in 1872. He then entered his father's business, where he passed through all
the departments necessary to a complete training as a manufacturer and merchant,
and was afterwards the commercial partner till the absorption of his firm in the
great "Thread Combine" in 1884. These years of experience as a large employer of
labour, in an arduous and highly organised industry, were no unfitting
preparation for the theoretic study of Political Economy. In 1886 he was
appointed Lecturer on this subject in University College, Dundee, and in Queen
Margaret College, Glasgow, posts which he retained respectively till 1887 and
1896. From 1892 till the latter year he also lectured on Political Economy in
Glasgow University, and in 1896, when the Adam Smith Chair was founded there, he
received the first appointment to it. At the same time the University conferred
upon him the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Three years earlier he had received
the degree of LL.D. from the University of St. Andrews.
In addition to many papers and pamphlets on various branches of his science, Dr.
Smart served his academic apprenticeship by translating the two monumental works
of Böhm-Bawerk, "Capital and Interest," and "The Positive Theory of Capital."
His original works are "An Introduction to the Theory of Value" (Macmillan),
"Studies on Economics" (Macmillan), "The Distribution of Income" (Macmillan),
"The Taxation of Land Values and the Single Tax" (Maclehose). His latest book,
published in 1904, is "The Return to Protection" (Macmillan), written during the
universal discussion which accompanied and followed Mr. Chamberlain's
propagandism of Preferential Tariffs and Mr. Balfour's advocacy of Retaliation.
Apart from the work of his Chair, Professor Smart has long taken strong interest
in the social problems of city life, and especially in the question of the housing
of the poor. On this subject he has vigorous and sane views, advocating a
combination of personal influence and force majeure for the regeneration of the
slums. Largely through his efforts much improvement has been made in the housing
of the Glasgow poor. He also attracted much attention a few years ago as one of
the fourteen professors of political economy who signed the protest against Mr.
Chamberlain's propaganda of Fiscal Reform.
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Index of Glasgow Men (1909)