Law officers edit

• Lord Advocate – John Murray
• Solicitor General for Scotland – John Cunninghame

Judiciary edit

• Lord President of the Court of Session – Lord Granton
• Lord Justice General – The Duke of Montrose until 30 December (separate office abolished on his death)
• Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Boyle

• 17 May – Arbroath and Forfar Railway authorised.
• 19 May – Dundee and Arbroath Railway authorised.
• June – 17 miniature coffins of unknown provenance are found in a cave on Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh.^[1]
• 1 July – North of Scotland Bank (a constituent of Clydesdale Bank) established in Aberdeen^[2] by Alexander Anderson and others.
• 16 July – the brig Mariner leaves Loch Eriboll on the north coast for Cape Breton Island and Quebec in British North America with 154 emigrants, mostly from the nearby Reay district.^[3]
• 30 July – Savings Bank of Glasgow established.^[3]
• 7 August – St Andrew's Cathedral, Dundee (Roman Catholic) opened.
• 13 August – Edinburgh, Leith and Newhaven Railway authorised.
• Botanical Society of Scotland established as the Botanical Society of Edinburgh.
• Glasgow and Ship Bank established by merger of the Glasgow Banking Company and the Ship Bank.^[4]
• Robert Napier launches the paddle sloop Berenice for the East India Company, the first steam warship built in Scotland, the (wooden) hull being subscontracted to John Wood of Port Glasgow.^[5]
• Construction of Granton harbour begun
• Construction of modern Inverness Castle.
• Former windmill at Maxwelltown opens as converted into an astronomical observatory and the world's oldest working camera obscura, basis of the modern-day Dumfries Museum.
• Wellington School, Ayr, established for "young ladies of quality" by Mrs Gross.
• John MacCulloch's geological map of Scotland is published posthumously.

• 13 January – Alexander Whyte, minister of the Free Church of Scotland and theologian (died 1921)
• 12 February – John Gerard Anderson, educationalist in Queensland (died 1911 in Australia)
• 21 February – Alexander Dickson, botanist (died 1887)
• 18 March – James Laidlaw Maxwell, Presbyterian missionary in Taiwan (died 1921)
• 31 March – William Dingwall Fordyce, Liberal politician (died 1875)
• 5 April – John Scott, botanist (died 1880)
• 24 May – William Mortimer Clark, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario (died 1915)
• 9 June – Thomas McCall Anderson, physician (died 1908)
• 26 June – Aeneas Chisholm (Bishop of Aberdeen), Roman Catholic priest (died 1918)
• 3 August – Colin Scott-Moncrieff, irrigation engineer in India and Egypt and Under-Secretary for Scotland (died 1916 in England)
• 11 August – Hugh Gilzean-Reid, journalist and Liberal politician (died 1911 in London)
• 7 September – Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (died 1908 in 10 Downing Street, London)
• 23 September – Samuel Chisholm, Liberal politician and Lord Provost of Glasgow (died 1923)
• 28 October – James Edward Tierney Aitchison, surgeon and botanist (died 1898)
• 16 November – David Binning Monro, classical scholar (died 1905)
• 4 December (probable date) – Duncan MacGregor Crerar, poet (died 1916)
• John Gregorson Campbell, minister of the church and folklorist (died 1891)
• William Baxter Collier Fyfe, genre and portrait painter (died 1882 in London)
• Jessie Seymour Irvine, psalmist (died 1887)
• William Angus Knight, philosopher and literary scholar (died 1916)
• John Rhind, architect (died 1889)
• Andrew Strath, golfer (died 1868)

• 15 February – John Gillies, Historiographer Royal for Scotland (born 1747)
• 24 February – Henry Liston, minister of the church and inventor (born 1771)
• 4 April – John Grieve, poet (born 1781)
• 23 June – James Mill, historian, economist, political theorist and philosopher (born 1773; died in London)
• August – Sir John Hope, British Army officer (born 1765)
• 21 October – Donald Gregory, antiquarian (born 1803)
• 26 November – John Loudon McAdam, civil engineer and road-builder (born 1756)
• 30 December – James Graham, 3rd Duke of Montrose, nobleman, politician and Lord Justice General (born 1755)
• John Heaviside Clark, artist (born c.1771)

• Painter David Wilkie is granted a knighthood.
• 5 March – George Brodie appointed Historiographer Royal

• 1836 in Ireland