1956 in Scotland

Events from the year 1956 in Scotland.

Incumbents

 * Secretary of State for Scotland and Keeper of the Great Seal – James Stuart

Law officers

 * Lord Advocate – William Rankine Milligan
 * Solicitor General for Scotland – William Grant

Judiciary

 * Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice General – Lord Clyde
 * Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Thomson
 * Chairman of the Scottish Land Court – Lord Gibson

Events

 * 7 March – The first floodlit Scottish Football League match is played at Ibrox Park in Glasgow; home team Rangers F.C. beat Queen of the South 8–0.
 * 1 June – Elsie Stephenson becomes founding director of the Nurse Teaching Unit, University of Edinburgh, the first nurse teaching unit within a British university.
 * 4 July – The National Library of Scotland's first purpose-built premises are opened on George IV Bridge in Edinburgh.
 * 29 July – the Ecurie Ecosse motor racing team, Ninian Sanderson and Ron Flockhart, win the 1956 24 Hours of Le Mans race.
 * 14 August – death of John Crichton-Stuart, 5th Marquess of Bute (born 1904); he bequeaths the uninhabited islands of St Kilda to the National Trust for Scotland as a bird sanctuary.
 * 25 September – the TAT-1 transatlantic telephone cable between the UK and North America is inaugurated; it comes ashore near Oban.
 * 4 October – Prince's Cairn unveiled at Loch nan Uamh to mark the spot where Charles Edward Stuart left Scotland in 1746 after failure of the Jacobite rising of 1745.
 * 20 October – Dundee Corporation Tramways last operate.
 * 16 November – Edinburgh Corporation Tramways last operate. Trams return to Edinburgh after much delay on 31 May 2014.
 * 2 December – in the 1956 Summer Olympics at Melbourne, Richard McTaggart of Dundee wins a gold medal in lightweight boxing.
 * 10 December – Thurso life-boat destroyed when its boathouse is burnt out.
 * The Scottish Medical Journal is first published in Edinburgh following merger of the Edinburgh Medical Journal and The Glasgow Medical Journal.

Births

 * 7 January – Ian Bell, journalist (died 2015)
 * 11 January – Phyllis Logan, actress
 * 22 February – Philip Kerr, writer (died 2018)
 * 25 February – Davie Cooper, footballer (died 1995)
 * 19 April – Anne Glover, biologist
 * 7 May – Calum MacDonald, Labour MP
 * 2 June – Susan Rae, radio newsreader
 * 22 June - Derek Forbes, Musician
 * 7 September – Robert Reed, judge, President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom
 * 26 September – Mick Imlah, poet (died 2009 in England)
 * 3 November – Cathy Jamieson, Labour MP
 * 29 December – Fred MacAulay, comedian
 * Lachlan Mackinnon, poet and critic

Deaths

 * 11 January – Buchanan Sharp, footballer (born 1894)
 * 30 May – Sir John Stirling-Maxwell, 10th Baronet, Conservative politician and philanthropist (born 1866)
 * 21 September – Bill Struth, football manager (born 1876)
 * 6 December – Helen Duncan, medium (born 1897)