1838 in Scotland

Events from the year 1838 in Scotland.

Law officers

 * Lord Advocate – John Murray
 * Solicitor General for Scotland – Andrew Rutherfurd

Judiciary

 * Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice General – Lord Granton
 * Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Boyle

Events

 * Winter 1837/38 – the Neolithic settlement of Rinyo on Rousay in Orkney is discovered.
 * January – leaders of the Glasgow cotton spinners' strike are sentenced to penal transportation (but cleared of murder).
 * 2 March – Clydesdale Bank founded in Glasgow.
 * 4–22 April – Leith-built paddle steamer SS Sirius (1837) makes the transatlantic crossing from Cork to New York in eighteen days, though not using steam continuously.
 * 21 May
 * Chartist meeting on Glasgow Green at which the People's Charter is launched.
 * Elizabeth Jeffrey of Carluke is hanged in Glasgow for poisoning a neighbour and a lodger.
 * c. June – Robert Napier receives his first contract from the Admiralty, for supply of side-lever engines for installation in HM paddle sloops Vesuvius and Stromboli.
 * 4 July – Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway authorised.
 * 25 July – Caledonian Curling Club founded in Edinburgh.
 * 4 August – the Court Journal prints a rumour that Archibald Montgomerie, 13th Earl of Eglinton, is going to host a great jousting tournament at his castle in Scotland. A few weeks later he confirms this.
 * 16 August – Debtors (Scotland) Act 1838 passed.
 * 7 September – Dundee paddle steamer Forfarshire (1834), homeward bound from Hull, is wrecked on the Farne Islands off the north east coast of England with the loss of more than 40 people; Grace Darling rescues nine survivors.
 * The Hebridean islands of Barra and Benbecula are sold by the MacNeils and Ranald MacDonald respectively to Colonel Gordon of Cluny.
 * Jenners department store established in Princes Street, Edinburgh.
 * Glen Ord Distillery established on the Black Isle.
 * The Ordnance Survey commences the primary triangulation of Scotland.
 * David Brewster originates the stereoscope.
 * Royal Scottish Academy is granted its Royal charter.
 * Floors Castle is remodelled in Scottish Baronial style by William Henry Playfair for James Innes-Ker, 6th Duke of Roxburghe.

Births

 * 13 January – William Miller, Free Church missionary and educationalist (died 1923)
 * 29 January – David Gray, poet (died 1861)
 * 22 February – John Joseph Jolly Kyle, chemist in Argentina (died 1922 in Buenos Aires)
 * 14 March – Robert Flint, Theologian and philosopher (died 1910)
 * 25 March – William Wedderburn, civil servant in India (died 1918 in England)
 * 26 March – Alexander Crum Brown, organic chemist (died 1922)
 * 21 April – John Muir, conservationist (died 1914 in the United States)
 * 17 May – William Esson, mathematician (died 1916 in England)
 * 6 June – Thomas Blake Glover, merchant (died 1911 in Japan)
 * 6 July – Thomas John MacLagan, doctor and pharmacologist (died 1903)
 * 7 July – Thomas Davidson, poet (died 1870)
 * 22 July – John McLagan, newspaper publisher (died 1901 in Canada)
 * 6 August – Walter Shirlaw, artist in the United States (died 1909 in Spain)
 * 3 September – David Bowman, botanist (died 1868 in Colombia)
 * 4 September – William Gibson Sloan, Plymouth Brethren evangelist (died 1914 in the Faroe Islands)
 * 6 September – George Ashdown Audsley, architect, artist, illustrator, writer, decorator and pipe organ designer (died 1925 in the United States)
 * 9 September – Thomas Barker, mathematician (died 1907 in England)
 * 10 October – William M'Intosh, physician and marine zoologist (died 1931)
 * 16 October – John Smart, landscape painter (died 1899)
 * 2 November – James Dykes Campbell, merchant and writer (died 1895)
 * 4 November – Andrew Martin Fairbairn, theologian (died 1912 in England)
 * 18 November – William Keith, landscape painter in California (died 1911 in the United States)
 * John Firth, Orcadian folklorist (died 1922)
 * Alexander Mackenzie, historian, author, magazine editor and politician (died 1898)
 * Samuel McGaw recipient of the Victoria Cross, during the First Ashanti Expedition (died in 1878)
 * Bruce James Talbert, interior designer (died 1881 in England)

Deaths

 * 30 March – Thomas Balfour, politician (born 1810)
 * 12 July – John Jamieson, lexicographer (born 1759)
 * 27 July – David Hume, advocate (born 1757)
 * 1 October – Charles Tennant, chemist and industrialist (born 1768)
 * 7 November – Anne Grant, poet and author (born 1755)
 * 16 November – Robert Cutlar Fergusson, lawyer and politician (born 1768)

The arts

 * 31 August – scene painter David Roberts sets sail for Egypt to produce a series of drawings of the region for use as the basis for paintings and chromolithographs.
 * November – Johann Strauss I and his orchestra visit Edinburgh and Glasgow.
 * Alexander and John Bethune publish Tales and Sketches of the Scottish Peasantry.
 * Angus MacKay publishes A Collection of Ancient Piobaireachd or Highland Bagpipe Music.