Law officers edit

• Lord Advocate – Archibald Colquhoun
• Solicitor General for Scotland – David Monypenny; then Alexander Maconochie

Judiciary edit

• Lord President of the Court of Session – Lord Granton
• Lord Justice General – The Duke of Montrose
• Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Boyle

• 1 April – whaler Oscar wrecked off Aberdeen with the loss of 44 lives.^[1]
• 15 April – foundation stone of new harbour at Newhaven, Edinburgh, laid.^[2]
• October
  • Completion of road bridge at Potarch by Thomas Telford; his bridge at Invermoriston is also completed this year.^[3]
  • Probable completion of cast-iron footbridge over Esk on Buccleuch estate near Langholm.^[4]
• The first Kirkcaldy whaler, The Earl Percy, sails north to the Davis Strait.
• Glasgow weavers fail in an attempt to secure higher wages.
• Robert Owen obtains control of the cotton spinning mills at New Lanark and publishes A New View of Society, or Essays on the Principle of the Formation of the Human Character.

• 30 January – George Gilfillan, writer and poet (died 1878)
• 18 March –
  • Thomas Graham Balfour, physician (died 1891 in London)
  • William Calder Marshall, sculptor (died 1894 in London)
• 19 March – David Livingstone, missionary and explorer (died 1873 in Africa)
• 13 April – Duncan Farquharson Gregory, mathematician (died 1844)
• 14 May (bapt.) – John Hosack, lawyer and historian (died 1887 in London)
• 17 May? – Eliza Rennie, author
• 18 May – Colin Blackburn, Baron Blackburn, judge (died 1896)
• 21 May – Robert Murray M'Cheyne, clergyman (died 1843)
• 27 May – William McNaught, steam engineer (died 1881 in Manchester)
• 21 June – William Edmondstoune Aytoun, lawyer and poet (died 1865)
• 28 July – James Newlands, municipal engineer (died 1871 in Liverpool)
• 10 August – Archibald Smith, mathematician and lawyer (died 1872 in London)
• 6 September – Edward Balfour, surgeon and orientalist (died 1889 in London)
• 10 September – Angus MacKay, piper (died 1859)
• 13 September – Daniel MacMillan, publisher (died 1857)
• 30 September – John Rae, Arctic explorer and physician (died 1893 in London)
• November – John Stuart, genealogist (died 1877)
• 13 December –
  • James R. Ballantyne, orientalist (died 1864)
  • David Brandon, architect (died 1897)
  • George Bryson Sr., businessman and politician in Quebec (died 1900 in Canada)
• 18 December – John Edgar Gregan, architect (died 1855 in Manchester)
• John Bell-Irving, businessman in Hong Kong (died 1907)
• James Colquhoun Campbell, Bishop of Bangor (died 1895 in Hastings)
• Benjamin Connor, steam locomotive designer (died 1876)
• Anthony Inglis, shipbuilder (died 1884)
• John Kennedy, Congregational minister and theologian (died 1900)
• William Logan, temperance campaigner (died 1879)
• Letitia MacTavish Hargrave, born Letitia MacTavish, pioneer in Canada (died 1854)
• Daniel M'Naghten, assassin (died 1865 in Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum)
• George Tosh, metallurgist (died 1900 in Scunthorpe)

• 5 January – Alexander Fraser Tytler, judge and historian (born 1747)
• 15 February – Francis Home, physician (born 1719)
• 15 March – Janet Richmond, born Janet Little, "The Scots Milkmaid", Scots language poet (born 1759)
• 15 April – Alexander Murray, linguist (born 1775)
• 22 June – Allan Burns, surgeon (born 1781)
• 8 July – William Craig, Lord Craig, judge (born 1745)
• 23 August – Alexander Wilson, ornithologist in America (born 1766)
• 11 October – Robert Kerr, scientific writer and translator (born 1755)
• 28 October – William Dudgeon, farmer and songwriter (born 1753?)

• James Hogg's poem The Queen's Wake is published.^[5]

• Timeline of Scottish history
• 1813 in Ireland