1889 in Scotland

Events from the year 1889 in Scotland.

Incumbents

 * Secretary for Scotland and Keeper of the Great Seal – The Marquess of Lothian

Law officers

 * Lord Advocate – James Robertson
 * Solicitor General for Scotland – Moir Tod Stormonth Darling

Judiciary

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

Events

 * 26 January – Dundee is granted city status in the United Kingdom by letters patent.
 * 5 February – the first issue of Glasgow University Magazine is published.
 * 11 March – baby farmer Jessie King is the last woman to be hanged in Edinburgh, for infanticide.
 * 24 April – William Henry Bury is hanged in Dundee for uxoricide.
 * 15 July – the Scottish National Portrait Gallery opens in Edinburgh in premises designed by Rowand Anderson, the first in the world to be purpose-built as a portrait gallery.
 * 26 August – the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889, receives royal assent. School fees abolished for compulsory education.
 * 5 September – Mauricewood Colliery disaster: a fire at the pit near Penicuik kills 63 of the 70 men and boys working underground.
 * 1 November – new building under construction at Templeton's Carpet Factory on Glasgow Green collapses killing 29 women in adjacent weaving sheds.
 * November - King's Cross Hospital opens in Dundee.

Births

 * 7 January – George Samson, sailor, recipient of the Victoria Cross (died at sea 1923)
 * 30 May – Isobel Wylie Hutchison, explorer (died 1982)
 * 20 July – John Reith, broadcasting executive (died 1971)
 * 11 August – Ronald Fairbairn, psychoanalyst (died 1964)
 * 25 September – Charles Kenneth Scott Moncrieff, writer (died 1930)
 * 1 December – Alexander Keiller, marmalade manufacturer and archaeologist (died 1955)
 * John Munro (Iain Rothach), Gaelic poet (killed in action 1918)

Deaths

 * 31 May – Horatius Bonar, churchman, writer and hymnodist (born 1808)
 * 24 December – Charles Mackay, poet, journalist, author, anthologist, novelist and songwriter (born 1812)

The arts

 * Arthur Conan Doyle's novel The Mystery of Cloomber is published.
 * Robert Louis Stevenson's novel The Master of Ballantrae is published.
 * The Great Scottish National Panorama (Battle of Bannockburn) is opened in Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow.