1817 in Scotland
{{Short description|none}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2020}}
{{Use British English|date=January 2016}}
{{Year in Scotland|1817}}
Events from the year 1817 in Scotland.
Incumbents
{{further|Politics of Scotland|Order of precedence in Scotland}}
= Law officers =
= Judiciary =
Events
- 25 January – The Scotsman is first published in Edinburgh as a liberal weekly newspaper by lawyer William Ritchie and customs official Charles Maclaren.{{cite web|url=http://archive.scotsman.com/edition.cfm?id=TSC/1817/01/25|title=The Scotsman|date=25 January 1817|publisher=The Scotsman Digital Archive|location=Edinburgh|access-date=2012-11-06}}
- 1 March – suffocating fumes in the Leadhills lead mine kill seven.{{cite journal|author-link=James Braid (surgeon)|last=Braid|first=James|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8-9HAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA414|title=Account of the Fatal Accident which happened in the Leadhills Company's Mines, the 1st March, 1817|journal=The Scots Magazine and Edinburgh Literary Miscellany|volume=79|date=June 1817|pages=414–416}}
- 1 April – Blackwood's Magazine is launched as the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine, a Tory publication. In October the publisher, William Blackwood, relaunches it as Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine.
- 20 May – Royal Botanic Institution of Glasgow founded by Thomas Hopkirk and others to establish a Glasgow Botanic Garden.{{cite web|title=James Jeffray|work=The University of Glasgow Story|publisher=University of Glasgow|url=https://www.universitystory.gla.ac.uk/biography/?id=WH1191&type=P|access-date=2022-07-17}}
- June – Union Canal authorised.
- 10 July – David Brewster patents the kaleidoscope.British patent no. 4136. {{cite web|url=http://www.brewstersociety.com/brewster_patent.pdf |title=Brewster Patent |access-date=2011-05-31 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110721020838/http://www.brewstersociety.com/brewster_patent.pdf |archive-date=21 July 2011 }}
- 15 October – school of whales seen in the Tay.
- November – Thomas Chalmers, in a sermon, appeals for a Christian effort to deal with the social condition of Glasgow.{{cite book|first1=Sheridan|last1=Gilley|first2=Brian|last2=Stanley|series=Cambridge History of Christianity, volume 8|title=World Christianities c. 1815–c. 1914|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LvvzlLf9dFEC&pg=PA301|year=2005|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-81456-0|page=301}}
- 4 December – The Inverness Courier is first published as a newspaper by John and Christian Isobel Johnstone.
- Dingwall Canal completed.{{Historic Environment Scotland|cat=PLA |num=12769 |num2=NH55NE 24 |desc=Dingwall Canal |access-date=3 July 2025}}
- A typhus epidemic occurs in Edinburgh and Glasgow.
- Dufftown founded by James Duff, 4th Earl Fife, in Moray.
- St Andrew's Cathedral, Aberdeen, opened as St Andrew's Chapel within the Episcopal Church.
- Calton Gaol, Edinburgh, completed.
- Old Tolbooth, Edinburgh, demolished.
- Glasgow Botanic Gardens created.
- Corsewall Lighthouse, designed by Robert Stevenson, first illuminated.{{cite web|url=http://www.nlb.org.uk/ourlights/history/corsewall.htm|publisher=Northern Lighthouse Board|title=Corsewall|access-date=2014-08-27|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061002165724/http://www.nlb.org.uk/ourlights/history/corsewall.htm|archive-date=2 October 2006|url-status=dead}}
- Thomas Telford's ferry piers at Invergordon and Inverbreakie are built.
- Bladnoch distillery founded by John and Thomas McClelland near Wigtown.
- Teaninich distillery founded by Hugh Munro at Alness.
- The post of Regius Professor of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow is established by King George III.
- Approximate date – the Kilmarnock and Troon Railway introduces into service The Duke, the first steam locomotive on a railway in Scotland.
Births
- February – Samuel Morison Brown, chemist, poet and essayist (died 1856)
- 15 February – Robert Angus Smith, atmospheric chemist (died 1884)
- 28 February – Walter Hood Fitch, botanical artist (died 1892)
- 9 April – Alexander Thomson, Greek Revival architect (died 1875)
- 29 April – Adam White, zoologist (died 1878)
- 17 May
- Thomas Davidson, palaeontologist (died 1885)
- John Ross, explorer (died 1903 in Australia)
- 22 May – James Macaulay, physician and literary editor (died 1902)
- 1 June – David Lyall, botanist (died 1895)
- 16 June – Alexander Forbes, bishop of Brechin (died 1875)
- 25 August – William Graham, wine merchant, art patron and Liberal politician (died 1885)
- 8 September – Stephen Hislop, Free Church missionary and geologist (died 1863 in India)
- 16 September – William Smith, architect (died 1891)
- 21 September – John Allan Broun, magnetologist (died 1879)
- 12 October – William Collins, publisher, Lord Provost of Glasgow and temperance activist (died 1895)
- 17 October – Alexander Mitchell, banker, railroad financier and Democratic politician (died 1887 in the United States)
- 29 October – Angus Macmillan, shipbuilder and politician on Prince Edward Island (died 1906 in Canada)
- 4 December – Thomas Thomson, military surgeon and botanist (died 1878 in India)
- 10 December – Alexander Wood, physician and inventor of the hypodermic syringe (died 1884)
- John Millar, Lord Craighill, Solicitor General (died 1888)
- Approximate date – Marion Kirkland Reid, feminist (died 1902?)
Deaths
- 8 February – Francis Horner, Whig politician, journalist, lawyer and political economist (born 1778; died in Italy)
- 3 September – James Byres of Tonley, art dealer (born 1734)
- 2 October – Alexander Monro, anatomist (born 1733)
- 8 October – Henry Erskine, lawyer and Whig politician (born 1746)
The arts
- 19 September – the body of poet Robert Burns (died 1796) is moved to a new mausoleum in Dumfries.{{cite web|title=Robert Burns Mausoleum|url=http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/dumfries/burnsmausoleum/|work=Undiscovered Scotland|access-date=2014-08-27}}
- 31 December – Walter Scott's novel Rob Roy is published anonymously.