Scotland has always set great store by information and knowledge. After the upheavals of the 1740s the Scottish economy expanded faster than ever before. The proportion of Scots living in towns doubled while Englands urban populations increased by only 25 per cent. The celebrated Scottish Renaissance or Enlightenment flowered in the growing urban communities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. Edinburgh got its first daily newspaper in 1705 The Scots Magazine was first published in 1739 and is still published today. The Encyclopaedia Britannica was first published in Edinburgh in 1768.

The Royal Bank of Scotland had opened its doors in 1727, as had the Friendly Insurance Company and the Royal Infirmary. Scotlands show-piece was Edinburgh New Town, designed by James Craig in 1767, as a celebration of British patriotism. The names of Princes Street, Hanover Street and St Georges Square all paid tribute to the House of Hanover. Later, the Scottish architects Sir William Chambers and particularly Robert Adam transformed the art of building and were appointed joint architects to King George III.

Among the giants of Scottish thought was the lawyer philosopher Henry Home, Lord Kames, who in 1748 invited Adam Smith the economic theorist, to give the lecture series at Edinburgh University that would form the basis for The Wealth of Nations. Kames was also distantly related to modernitys first great philosopher, David Hume. Later, Dugald Stewart, the professor of moral philosophy at Edinburgh University from 1785, was instrumental in shaping Whig policy in the early 19th century. Among his students were radical reformers and political leaders of the next generation, including two Prime Ministers, Lords Palmerston and Russell, Minto, First Lord of the Admiralty and the future Lord Chancellor, Henry Brougham.