Law officers edit

• Lord Advocate – Sir William Rae, Bt until April; then John Murray
• Solicitor General for Scotland – Duncan McNeill; then John Cunninghame

Judiciary edit

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

• 21 January – Airdrie Savings Bank opens its doors to business; it will remain as an independent trustee savings bank^[1] until 2017.
• 29 May – the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland confirms the Veto Act which allows a majority of heads of families to exclude a presentee from a parish, legislation which is subsequently ruled as invalid.^[2]
• 3 July – Slamannan Railway authorised.^[3]
• 21 July – Paisley and Renfrew Railway authorised.^[4]
• Alloa Coal Company established as a partnership by William Mitchell and others to work coal pits in Clackmannanshire.^[5]
• Roderick Murchison names the Silurian period in geology.^[6]
• An edition of the Chronicle of Melrose edited by Joseph Stevenson is published in Edinburgh for the Bannatyne Club.^[7]

• 28 January – Robert Herbert Story, minister of the Church of Scotland and Principal of the University of Glasgow (died 1907)
• February – James Davis, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross (died 1893)
• 9 February – John Malcolmson, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross (died 1902 in London)
• 3 March – William Fraser Rae, journalist and author (died 1905 in England)
• 19 March – Edmund Montgomery, philosopher, scientist and physician (died 1911 in the United States)
• 29 March
  • Madeleine Smith, socialite, accused in a murder trial (died 1928 in the United States)
  • James Taylor, tea planter (died 1892 in Ceylon)
• 5 April – Donald Cameron, 24th Lochiel, diplomat and Conservative politician (died 1905)
• 3 May – Edward Hargitt, ornithologist and landscape painter (died 1895)
• 18 May – Sir Fitzroy Maclean, 10th Baronet, soldier and clan chief (died 1936)
• 28 May – James Small, laird (died 1900)
• 17 June – James Brunton Stephens, poet (died 1902 in Australia)
• 20 June – Andrew Tennant, pastoralist (died 1913 in Australia)
• 11 July – John Macvicar Anderson, architect (died 1915 in London)
• 15 July – Louisa Stevenson, campaigner for women's rights (died 1908)
• 21 July – Robert Munro, archaeologist (died 1920)
• 27 July – William Boyd Stewart, minister of the Baptist church and educationalist (died 1912 in Canada)
• 18 August – Robert Murdoch Smith, military engineer, archaeologist and diplomat (died 1900)
• 5 September – Thomas Cadell, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross (died 1919)
• 2 October – James Stirling, steam locomotive engineer (died 1917 in Ashford, Kent)
• 25 October – William McTaggart, marine painter (died 1910)
• 15 November – Archibald Scott Cleghorn, businessman who marries into the royal family of Hawaii (died 1910 in Hawaii)
• 25 November – Andrew Carnegie, steel magnate and philanthropist (died 1919 in the United States)^[8]
• 13 December – Archibald Hamilton Charteris, minister of the Church of Scotland and theologian (died 1906)
• 28 December – Archibald Geikie, geologist (died 1924 in England)
• James Park, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross (killed in action 1858 in India)
• Mungo Park, golfer (died 1904)

• 14 April – Joseph Grant, poet (born 1805)
• 5 June – Sir William Honyman, Lord Armadale, landowner and judge (born 1756)
• 5 August – Thomas M'Crie the elder, minister of the church and historian (born 1772)
• 16 September – Henry Belfrage, minister of the Secession church (born 1774)
• 2 October – John Mackay Wilson, writer (born 1804)
• 1 November – William Motherwell, poet (born 1797)
• 9 November – Michael Scott, author and autobiographer who wrote under the pseudonym Tom Cringle (born 1789)
• 21 November – James Hogg, "the Ettrick shepherd", poet and novelist (born 1770)
• 21 December – Sir John Sinclair, 1st Baronet, agriculturalist, politician, economist and statistician (born 1754)

• 26 September – première of Donizetti's opera Lucia di Lammermoor in Naples.
• 30 December – première of Donizetti's opera Maria Stuarda at La Scala in Milan.
• Hugh Miller publishes Scenes and Legends in the North of Scotland.

• 1835 in Ireland