1785 in Scotland

Events from the year 1785 in Scotland.

Law officers

 * Lord Advocate – Ilay Campbell
 * Solicitor General for Scotland – Robert Dundas of Arniston

Judiciary

 * Lord President of the Court of Session – Lord Arniston, the younger
 * Lord Justice General – The Viscount Stormont
 * Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Barskimming

Events

 * 7 March – geologist James Hutton proposes the theory of uniformitarianism to the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
 * Late September – James Boswell’s The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides is published.
 * 5 October – flight by Florentine aeronaut Vincenzo Lunardi in a gas balloon from George Heriot's School, Edinburgh, across the Firth of Forth to Ceres, Fife (32 mi (51.5 km) in 1.5 hrs).
 * 23 November – Lunardi flies from St Andrew's Square, Glasgow, to Hawick.

Births

 * 18 May – John Wilson, writer (died 1854)
 * 18 November – David Wilkie, painter (died at sea 1841)

Deaths

 * 23 January – Matthew Stewart, mathematician (born 1717)
 * 4 October – Alexander Runciman, painter (born 1736)
 * 23 October – William Cochran, painter (born 1738)

The arts

 * 22 May – Robert Burns' first child, Elizabeth ("Dear-bought Bess"), is born to his mother's servant, Elizabeth Paton and his poems "To a Mouse" and "Halloween" are written.