1740 in Scotland

Events from the year 1740 in Scotland.

Incumbents

 * Secretary of State for Scotland: vacant

Law officers

 * Lord Advocate – Charles Erskine
 * Solicitor General for Scotland – William Grant of Prestongrange

Judiciary

 * Lord President of the Court of Session – Lord Culloden
 * Lord Justice General – Lord Ilay
 * Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Milton

Events

 * 7 July – Adam Smith sets out from Scotland to take up a scholarship at Balliol College, Oxford.
 * Hugh and Robert Tennent take over the Wellpark Brewery, originally known as the Drygate Brewery, in Glasgow.
 * General George Wade is succeeded as Commander-in-chief in Scotland by Sir John Cope.
 * The 43rd Highland Regiment of Foot (the 'Black Watch') first musters, at Aberfeldy.

Births

 * 28 March (bapt.) – James Small, inventor (died 1793)
 * 15 July – Archibald Hamilton, 9th Duke of Hamilton (died 1819)
 * 29 October – James Boswell, diarist and biographer of Samuel Johnson (died 1795)
 * James Cannon, mathematician and a principal draftsman of the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 (died in 1782 in the United States)
 * William Davidson, settler, lumberman, shipbuilder and politician in New Brunswick (died 1790 in Canada)
 * William Smellie, master printer, naturalist, antiquary, editor and encyclopedist (died 1795)
 * Christopher Wyvill, cleric, landowner and political reformer in England (died 1822)

Deaths

 * 2 February – John Simson, heterodox theologian (born 1668?)
 * 22 May – John Boyle, 2nd Earl of Glasgow (born 1688)
 * 8 September – William Bruce, 8th Earl of Kincardine

The arts

 * 1 August – the patriotic song "Rule, Britannia!", with words by Scottish-born poet James Thomson, is first performed at Cliveden, the English country home of Frederick, Prince of Wales.