Alexander Adam

[2] In 1764 he became private tutor to Alexander Kincaid, afterwards Lord Provost of Edinburgh, by whose influence he was appointed in 1768 to the rectorship of the High School on the retirement of Mr Matheson, whose substitute he had been for some time before.

His popularity and his success as a teacher are strikingly illustrated by the great increase in the number of his pupils, many of whom subsequently became distinguished men, among them being Walter Scott, Lord Brougham and Francis Jeffrey.

[2] He succeeded in introducing the study of Greek into the curriculum of the school, notwithstanding the opposition of the university headed by Principal William Robertson.

The manuscript of a projected larger Latin dictionary, which he did not live to complete, lies in the library of the High School.

[2] Adam married first, in 1775, Agnes Munro, whose father was minister of Kinloss; and second, in 1780, Jean Cosser, a daughter of the controller of excise in Edinburgh.