1862 in Scotland

Events from the year 1862 in Scotland.

Law officers

 * Lord Advocate – James Moncreiff
 * Solicitor General for Scotland – Edward Maitland; then George Young

Judiciary

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

Events

 * 24 February – St Abb's Head lighthouse first illuminated. Butt of Lewis Lighthouse is also completed this year.
 * May
 * Around 40% of the Fair Isle population migrates to New Brunswick.
 * The 10.00 a.m. "Special Scotch Express", predecessor of the Flying Scotsman express train, first departs from London King's Cross railway station for Edinburgh Waverley over the East Coast Main Line.
 * 1 June – the 10.00 a.m. passenger service, predecessor of the Royal Scot express train, first departs from London Euston railway station for Glasgow over the West Coast Main Line.
 * July – the Glasgow & Stranraer Steam Packet Company's PS Briton enters service on the first Stranraer to Larne ferry service.
 * 28 August – the Portpatrick Railway opens to Portpatrick; on 1 October it opens its branch to Stranraer Harbour.
 * 31 August – last mail coach runs from Carlisle to Hawick.
 * 20 September – SS Irishman runs aground on Skernataid Rock between the islands of Raasay and Scalpay, Inner Hebrides.
 * 11 October – Jessie M'Lachlan, having been found guilty in the Sandyford murder case in Glasgow, is to be hanged, but has her sentence commuted to life imprisonment.
 * 13 October – Winchburgh rail crash: A head-on collision on the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway kills 15.
 * 18 December – "Day of the Great Drowning": 31 men, the entire crews of five fishing boats from Ness, Lewis, are drowned in a storm.
 * Prime gilt, a duty levied by Trinity House of Leith on goods coming into the port, is abolished.
 * Henry Littlejohn becomes Edinburgh's first Medical Officer of Health, serving until 1908.
 * David Kirkaldy publishes Results of an Experimental Inquiry into the Comparative Tensile Strength and other properties of various kinds of Wrought-Iron and Steel in Glasgow describing his pioneering work in tensile testing.
 * Bishop Robert Eden is elected Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, an office he will hold until his death in 1886.
 * Establishment of Anderson High School (Shetland) in Lerwick.
 * Tom Morris, Sr. wins The Open Championship at Prestwick Golf Club, Ayrshire.
 * First Aberdeen Angus herd book created.
 * Inverewe Garden created by Osgood Mackenzie in Wester Ross.

Births

 * 1 January – Andrew Blain Baird, engineer and aviation pioneer (died 1951)
 * 28 June – William Younger, politician (died 1937)
 * 11 August – David Henderson, British Army officer (died 1921 in Switzerland)
 * 29 August – Andrew Fisher, Prime Minister of Australia (died 1928 in England)
 * 21 October – Donald Murray, Liberal Party Member of Parliament for the Western Isles from 1918 to 1922 (died 1923)
 * 26 October – David Anderson, Lord St Vigeans, Scottish advocate and judge, Chairman of the Scottish Land Court 1918–34 (died 1948)

Deaths

 * 24 September – William Forbes Mackenzie, Conservative politician and temperance reformer (born 1807 in England)
 * 29 June – James Bowman Lindsay, inventor (born 1799)