1805 in Scotland

Events from the year 1805 in Scotland.

Law officers

 * Lord Advocate – Sir James Montgomery, Bt
 * Solicitor General for Scotland – Robert Blair

Judiciary

 * Lord President of the Court of Session – Lord Succoth
 * Lord Justice General – The Duke of Montrose
 * Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Granton

Events

 * 5 June – Edinburgh engraver David Scott and potter Hugh Adamson are executed at Glasgow Cross for forging banknotes.
 * 21 October – Battle of Trafalgar: A British Royal Navy fleet led by Admiral Horatio Nelson defeats a combined French and Spanish fleet off the coast of Spain. Around 1,150 of the 18,000 men on the British ships were born in Scotland.
 * The planned village of New Scone is established.
 * John and James Crombie establish the Crombie clothing company in Aberdeen.
 * Isla Bank Mills at Keith are established.
 * Killermont House is built at Bearsden for the Campbell-Colquhoun family.
 * Rebuilding of Stobo Castle is begun.
 * The Snow Tower (keep) of Kildrummy Castle collapses.
 * Jean Maxwell is sentenced to a year's imprisoned in Kirkcudbright Tolbooth for "pretending to exercise witchcraft, sorcery, inchantment, conjuration, &c."
 * English geologist George Bellas Greenough tours Scotland.

Births

 * 26 January – Patrick Fairbairn, theologian (died 1874)
 * 30 January – Edward Sang, mathematician (died 1890)
 * 8 March – Rayner Stephens, radical reformer and Methodist minister (died 1879 in Stalybridge)
 * 26 March – Alexander John Scott, dissident theologian and educationalist (died 1866 in Switzerland)
 * 18 May – James Paterson journalist and antiquary (died 1876)
 * 26 May – Joseph Grant, poet (died 1835)
 * 3 August (bapt.) – William McCombie, agriculturalist (died 1880)
 * 8 August – Henry Craik, evangelical preacher and Hebraist (died 1866 in Bristol)
 * 11 October – James Salmon, architect (died 1888)
 * 28 October – John Thomson, classical composer (died 1841)
 * November – Horatio McCulloch, landscape painter (died 1867)
 * 10 December – William Anderson, writer (died 1866 in London)
 * 13 December – Johann von Lamont, astronomer and physicist (died 1879 in Germany)
 * 21 December – Thomas Graham, chemist (died 1869 in Scotland)
 * Alexander Forrester, educationalist in Nova Scotia (died 1869 in Canada)
 * James Merry, ironmaster, Liberal politician and racehorse breeder (died 1877)
 * David Boswell Reid, physician, chemist and "grandfather of air conditioning" (died 1863 in the United States)

Deaths

 * 30 January – John Robison, physicist (born 1739)
 * 25 February – William Buchan, physician (born 1729)
 * 29 March – Jean Elliot, poet (born 1727)
 * 28 August – Alexander Carlyle, Church of Scotland leader (born 1722)
 * 21 October – George Duff, naval officer (born 1764; killed at Battle of Trafalgar)
 * 23 December – Francis Masson, plant hunter (born 1741; died in Montreal)

The arts

 * Walter Scott's narrative poem The Lay of the Last Minstrel is published.