Adam Smith 300: Town Square marquee set for party for Smith’s 300th anniversary

Academics and big names have already been announced for events in the Lang Toun next month, but the organisers want to make the landmark tercentenary open to as many people as possible. This week the wraps came off a host of family events - many of them free - to be staged in a marquee in the Town Square, while the Old Kirk is set to re-stage his baptism with a special performance.

Smith’s tercentenary is set to be celebrated widely in Kirkcaldy with events across several venues early in June. They are led by the Adam Smith Global Foundation with the full backing of Kirkcaldy area committee as the town puts its most famous, and globally renowned, son firmly in the spotlight.

The Town Square marquee will be host to a number of events from Friday, June 9 to Sunday 11th.

Pupils forms schools across Kirkcaldy district will add their contributions to the party by honouring Smith’s legacy - and creating their own. They’ll be joined by a number of key community groups for arts and crafts. There will also be a big birth party for Adam on the Saturday 10th very much aimed at families with everything from DJs and entertainment to candy floss and juice, with plans for a silent disco in the evening. That will be followed with more arts and crafts on Sunday and a family ceilidh in the afternoon where people will be invited to bring a donation for Kirkcaldy Foodbank.

Julie Dickson, community manager for Kirkcaldy area, said: “It’ll be a real celebration of Adam Smith and Kirkcaldy. We want to make the activities relevant to young people today, and help them better understand Smith - the aim is to ensure there is a legacy from the tercentenary.”

A recreation of Smith’s baptism will also take place at the Old Kirk on Monday June 5 - 300 years to the day the actual event took place.

Members of the Auld Kirk Players, Friends of the Auld Kirk and Kirkcaldy Civic Society will all help to tell the story dramatically, aided by singers from local societies Fife Opera and Kirkcaldy Gilbert & Sullivan Society. The event will feature horse drawn carriages on a tour round town, as well as some poetry readings and music of the time, courtesy of Kirkcaldy Orchestral Society.

Smith’s global fame as a moral philosopher, lecturer, writer and Father of economics, will also be told by Emeritus Professor Eli Cox III, from the School of Business Studies in Austin University in Texas.

The Old Kirk is also the venue for the tercentenary;’s academic programme which has been curated by former MP, Roger Mullin, and brings renowned scholars from America to town, together with the sharpest minds from Scotland’s universities.

Broadcaster Robert Person will give the 2023 Adam Smith Lecture in the first event to be staged at the Adam Smith Theatre for three years, while there are shows featuring Two Doors Down stars Arabella Weir and Elaine C. Smith, and a visit from author Sandy McCall Smith. The celebrations are then rounded with a day and evening of live music at the Kings Live Lounge on the Esplanade.