Adam Smith is often seen as the founding father of economics. He developed much of the theory about markets that we regard as standard theory now. In fact he could be seen as being to blame for much of the content of current economics coursesAdam Smith was Scottish and after graduating from Glasgow at the amazing age of 17 he was a fellow at Oxford and then he lectured back in Scotland again first at Edinburgh and then Glasgow Universities. Surprisingly this was not in economics. In fact it was not until 10 years after leaving the Chair of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow that he wrote the book or series of books for which he is most famous. After Glasgow, he decided to go travelling. Almost certainly this was not backpacking and sleeping out in stations as he spent much of this time meeting the influential thinkers of the day. It was this that helped him to formulate his ideas, and once he got back to Scotland again, he started writing.

Website: http://www.bized.co.uk/virtual/economy/library/economists/smith.htm