Ian Simpson Ross (9 August 1930 – 21 May 2015[1]) was a Scottish academic and biographer of Adam Smith.[2][3]
He was born in Dundee. His father worked in the jute industry and his mother was employed in service. He was educated at Blackness Primary School and was awarded a bursary to Harris Academy.[3][2] In 1950 he went to the University of St Andrews to read English literature after being awarded a state grant. He was awarded a first class honours degree in 1954.[2][4] He was granted a Tyndall-Bruce Scholarship at Merton College, Oxford, where he studied the Scottish poets at James VI's court under the supervision of David Nichol Smith.[3][2][5] He was awarded a BLitt in 1956.[4] He won a Fulbright Scholarship at the University of Texas, where he read his PhD. Under the supervision of Ernest Campbell Mossner, Ross focused on important members of the Scottish Enlightenment,[3][2] and was awarded his PhD in 1960.[4]
He was appointed Instructor at the University of British Columbia, where he taught eighteenth-century literature. In 1982 he became head of the English department and in 1993 he was appointed Professor Emeritus of English.[3][2] He was also elected to a Fellowship of the Royal Society of Canada.[4]
His first book was a biography of Lord Kames, which was published in 1972, and he also penned a study of William Dunbar (1981).[6][7]
His 1995 biography of Adam Smith was the first full-scale biography since John Rae's 1895 work.[8] It was well received and the second edition was published in 2010. Gavin Kennedy said "Ian was the doyen among Adam Smith's modern scholarly biographers. His biography will never be surpassed."[2] In his review, William D. Grampp said Ross' "scholarship is a thing of wonder."[9]
He visited Scotland during the 2014 independence referendum and was a supporter of Scottish independence.[2] In 2015 he died in Vancouver, aged 84, and was survived by his wife and their five children.[3]