1853 in Scotland

Events from the year 1853 in Scotland.

Law officers

 * Lord Advocate – James Moncreiff
 * Solicitor General for Scotland – Charles Neaves; then Robert Handyside; then James Craufurd

Judiciary

 * Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice General – Lord Colonsay
 * Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Glencorse

Events

 * 12 August – Licensing (Scotland) Act (known after its sponsor as the 'Forbes Mackenzie Act') regulates the supply of intoxicating beverages.
 * 28 September – emigrant ship Annie Jane sinks in heavy seas off Vatersay, with the loss of 350 lives.
 * Highland Clearances in Skye and Raasay.
 * National Association for the Vindication of Scottish Rights formed.
 * Second cholera pandemic again revives in Scotland.
 * Time ball installed on Nelson Monument, Edinburgh.
 * Corn exchange built in Dalkeith.
 * John Hill Burton publishes his History of Scotland from the Revolution to the Extinction of the last Jacobite Insurrection.

Births

 * 12 January – James MacLaren, architect in the "Arts and Crafts" style (died 1890)
 * 4 March – Hector MacDonald, soldier (suicide 1903 in Paris)
 * 31 March – Isaac Bayley Balfour, botanist (died 1922)
 * 10 June – Alexander Watson Hutton, "father of football in Argentina" (died 1936 in Buenos Aires)
 * 17 July – William Gunion Rutherford, classical scholar (died 1907 in England)

Deaths

 * 2 January – William Collins, publisher (born 1789)
 * 30 July – John Struthers, poet (born 1776)
 * 28 September – Adam Anderson, Lord Anderson, judge (born c.1797)
 * 21 October – Robert Gordon, minister of religion and scientist (born 1786)

The arts

 * Summer – John Everett Millais stays at Brig o' Turk in Glen Finglas with John Ruskin and his wife Effie to begin painting John Ruskin.
 * Alexander Smith's 'A Life Drama' is published as Poems.