Adam Gifford, Lord Gifford

[2] He went to school at Edinburgh Institution (now known as Stewart's Melville) and in 1835 was apprenticed to be a solicitor with his uncle, Alexander Gifford SSC[3] at 2 Hill Square on the south side of the city.

[5] He was appointed Sheriff of Orkney and Shetland in 1865, but delegated his duties to a resident sheriff-substitute and continued his private practice as an advocate.

[1] At this stage in his life he lived at 4 Lower Joppa with his brother John on the eastern coastline of the city.

[6] His lucrative private practice as an advocate made him a fortune, which he bequeathed towards the endowment of the four Gifford Lectureships on natural theology in connection with each of the four universities in Scotland then extant (Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh and St Andrews); he was a man of a philosophical turn of mind, and a student of the works of Spinoza.

[citation needed] He was the uncle of Sir Walter Raleigh (1861–1922), the professor of English at the University of Glasgow.