Page "David Hume" Paragraph 4

David Hume, originally David Home, son of Joseph Home of Chirnside, advocate, and Katherine Falconer, was born on 26 April 1711 ( Old Style ) in a tenement on the north side of the Lawnmarket in Edinburgh.

He changed the spelling of his name in 1734, because the fact that his surname ' Home ' was pronounced ' Hume ' in Scotland was not known in England.

Throughout his life Hume, who never married, spent time occasionally at his family home at Ninewells by Chirnside, Berwickshire, which had belonged to his family since the sixteenth century.