1726 in Scotland

Events from the year 1726 in Scotland.

Incumbents

 * Secretary of State for Scotland: vacant

Law officers

 * Lord Advocate – Duncan Forbes
 * Solicitor General for Scotland – John Sinclair, jointly with Charles Erskine

Judiciary

 * Lord President of the Court of Session – Lord North Berwick
 * Lord Justice General – Lord Ilay
 * Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Grange

Events

 * 25 May – Britain's first circulating library is opened in Edinburgh by poet and bookseller Allan Ramsay.
 * 23 June – professional Irish swordsman Andrew Bryan is defeated in a public duel in Edinburgh by 62-year-old Killiecrankie veteran Donald Bane "to the great joy of the Edinburgh citizenry".
 * General George Wade begins an 11-year program of road improvement and bridge building in Scotland.
 * A faculty of medicine is formally established at the University of Edinburgh, a predecessor of the University of Edinburgh Medical School. John Rutherford becomes Professor of Practice of Medicine.

Births

 * 17 January – Hugh Mercer, soldier and physician (died 1777 of wounds received at the Battle of Princeton)
 * 6 February – Patrick Russell, surgeon and herpetologist (died 1805 in London)
 * 3 June – James Hutton, geologist (died 1797)
 * 26 September – John H. D. Anderson, scientist (died 1796)
 * Andrew Bell, engraver, co-founder of the Encyclopædia Britannica (died 1809)
 * Thomas Melvill, natural philosopher (died 1753)

Deaths

 * 8 July – John Ker, spy (born 1673)
 * August – Colonel John Stewart (of Livingstone), former Member of Parliament for the Kirkcudbright Stewartry, killed by Sir Gilbert Eliott, 3rd Baronet, of Stobs
 * Robert Dundas, Lord Arniston, judge

The arts

 * James Thomson begins publication of his poem cycle The Seasons with "Winter".