ABSTRACT
Archibald Alison, son of the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, was to become the life-long friend of Dugald Stewart. Starting in 1771, for a year, they shared lodgings in Glasgow when both were students at the University. Archibald was three years younger than Stewart and was just beginning his course. Archibald was to leave Glasgow to take up a scholarship at Balliol College, Oxford, while Stewart left in 1772 to join his ailing father at Catrine, the family’s country home in Ayrshire. Matthew Stewart’s health was deteriorating and by the University session of 1772–73, Dugald was deputising for his father in the Chair of Mathematics at Edinburgh University. 1
