1818 in Scotland

{{further|Politics of Scotland|Order of precedence in Scotland}}

• Lord Advocate – Alexander Maconochie
• Solicitor General for Scotland – James Wedderburn

• Lord President of the Court of Session – Lord Granton
• Lord Justice General – The Duke of Montrose
• Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Boyle

• 13 January – Torgoyle Bridge in Glenmoriston is swept away by an exceptional flood event.9th report of the Parliamentary Commissioners for Highland Roads and Bridges, April 1821.
• 4 February – the Honours of Scotland are put on display in Edinburgh Castle after being discovered in store there;{{cite web|title=Chronology of Scottish History|work=A Timeline of Scottish History|publisher=Rampant Scotland|url=http://www.rampantscotland.com/timeline/1899.htm|access-date=2014-05-18}} Walter Scott, one of the prime movers in the discovery, is rewarded with a baronetcy in 1820.
• 17 February – the remains of King Robert the Bruce found at Dunfermline Abbey.{{cite web|title=Dunfermline celebrates discovery of Robert the Bruce remains|url=https://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/dunfermline-celebrates-discovery-of-robert-the-bruce-remains-1-4689156|website=Scotsman|access-date=25 February 2018|language=en}}
• 3 March – construction of the Union Canal begins at the Edinburgh end.{{cite web|title=History of Edinburgh|url=http://www.visionsofscotland.co.uk/EdinHistory.htm|work=Visions of Scotland|access-date=2014-05-18|archive-date=14 February 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150214170220/http://www.visionsofscotland.co.uk/EdinHistory.htm|url-status=dead}}
• 19 March – Church of St John the Evangelist, Edinburgh, designed by William Burn, dedicated.
• Mid-May – paddle steamer Thames makes the first steamboat passage from the Clyde to Dublin.{{cite book|first=H. Philip|last=Spratt|title=The Birth of the Steamboat|url=https://archive.org/details/birthofsteamboat0000spra|url-access=registration|location=London|publisher=Charles Griffin|year=1958|pages=[https://archive.org/details/birthofsteamboat0000spra/page/95 95–7]}}
• 13–14 June – Rob Roy makes the first steamboat passage from the Clyde to Belfast.{{cite book|editor=Moody, T. W.|title=A New History of Ireland. 8: A Chronology of Irish History|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1989|isbn=978-0-19-821744-2|display-editors=etal}}
• New road bridge at Spean Bridge completed to a design by Thomas Telford.{{cite web|title=Spean Bridge|url=http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/site/108231/details/spean+bridge/|work=Canmore|publisher=Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland|year=2007|access-date=2014-08-09}}
• First public supply of gas in Glasgow.
• Robert Barclay founds the engineering company in Glasgow that will become marine engineers Barclay Curle.
• Shipbuilder Thomas Morton of Leith invents the patent slip.
• Robert Stirling builds the first practical version of his Stirling engine.
• Restoration of the great house at Rosehall begins, to assist which a private canal is dug.{{cite journal|first1=N.|last1=Forbes|first2=J. M. T.|last2=Howat|title=The Rosehall Canal: The Most Northerly in Great Britain?|journal=Journal of the Railway and Canal Historical Society|volume=34|year=2002|pages=38–9}}
• The post of Regius Professor of Botany, Glasgow, is established by King George III, Robert Graham, MD, being the first holder; Thomas Thomson takes up his appointment as first Regius Professor of Chemistry here.

• 21 February – George Wilson, chemist (died 1859)
• 10 March – William Menelaus, mechanical engineer (died 1882 in Wales)
• 17 May – William Hay, architect (died 1888)
• 4 June – Alexander Henry, gun maker and rifle volunteer (died 1894)
• 11 June – Alexander Bain, philosopher and educationalist (died 1903)
• 22 June – Donald Mackenzie, advocate and judge (died 1875)
• 22 July – Thomas Stevenson, lighthouse designer and meteorologist (died 1887)
• 5 August – Thomas Elder, pastoralist, businessman, racehorse breeder, politician and philanthropist in Australia (died 1897 in Australia)
• 23 August – John Cairns, Presbyterian divine (died 1892)
• 25 September – Helen Macfarlane, radical writer (died 1860)
• 3 October – Alexander Macmillan, publisher (died 1896)
• 24 October – William Forsyth, writer (died 1879)
• 7 December – John Blackwood, publisher (died 1879)
• Andrew Leslie, shipbuilder
• Alexander McLachlan, poet (died 1896 in Canada)

• 13 February – George Dempster of Dunnichen, advocate, agricultural improver, banker and politician (born 1732)
• 15 March – Hector Macneill, poet (born 1746)
• 6 November – Malcolm Laing, historian (born 1762)
• 7 December – Mary Brunton, novelist (born 1778){{cite book |last1=Royle |first1=Trevor |title=The Mainstream Companion to Scottish Literature |date=2012 |publisher=Random House |isbn=9781780574196 |page=92 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r8C1I7yD8wUC&pg=PT92 |language=en}}

• June–August – English poet John Keats with his friend Charles Armitage Brown makes a walking tour of Scotland, Ireland and the English Lake District. On 11 July, while in Scotland, he visits Burns Cottage, the birthplace of Robert Burns (1759–96). Before Keats arrives, he writes to a friend "one of the pleasantest means of annulling self is approaching such a shrine as the cottage of Burns — we need not think of his misery — that is all gone — bad luck to it — I shall look upon it all with unmixed pleasure."Costa, Robert (2009-08-04). [https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204886304574308681606221044 "Keats’s House, Restored"]. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2009-08-12. [https://web.archive.org/web/20090808133858/http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204886304574308681606221044.html Archived] 2009-08-15. but his encounter with the cottage's alcoholic custodian returns him to thoughts of misery.{{cite book|author-link=Sidney Colvin|first=Sidney|last=Colvin|title=John Keats}} On 2 August he climbs to the summit of Ben Nevis, on which he writes a sonnet.{{cite web|title=200 years ago Keats climbed Ben Nevis|work=Keats 200|url=http://johnkeats200.co.uk/1818/200-years-ago-keats-climbed-ben-nevis/|date=2018|access-date=2020-04-01}}
• 10 June – first performance of the opera Rob Roy MacGregor, William Henry Murray's adaptation of Walter Scott's 1817 novel Rob Roy, in Edinburgh;{{cite book|last1=Burwick|first1=Frederick|title=Playing to the Crowd London Popular Theater, 1780-1830|date=2011|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|location=New York|isbn=978-0230370654|page=121|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NRTGAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA121}} Mrs Nicol plays "Jean McAlpine".
• 18 July – Walter Scott's novel The Heart of Midlothian, set during the Porteous Riots of 1736, is published (as Tales of My Landlord, 2nd series, by 'Jedediah Cleishbotham', in 4 volumes); a shipload from the Ballantyne publishing business is sent from Edinburgh to London.{{cite book|author-link=John Sutherland (author)|first=John|last=Sutherland|title=How to be Well Read|location=London|publisher=Random House|year=2014|isbn=978-1-847-94640-9|page=214}}
• 18 September – the original Theatre Royal in Glasgow becomes the first theatre in Scotland to be lit by gas.London theatres had been gaslit the previous year. {{cite web|title=Theatres Compete in Race to Install Gas Illumination – 1817|url=http://www.overthefootlights.co.uk/1817-18.pdf|work=Over The Footlights|access-date=2014-05-20}}
• James Barr composes a musical setting of the late Robert Tannahill's "Thou Bonnie Wood of Craigielea" which will later become the basis of the tune "Waltzing Matilda".{{cite book|last=O'Keeffe|first=Dennis|title=Waltzing Matilda: The Secret History of Australia's Favourite Song|year=2012|publisher=Allen and Unwin|location=Sydney|isbn=978-1-74237-706-3}}
• Ludwig van Beethoven composes settings of Twenty-Five Scottish Songs.

• Timeline of Scottish history
• 1818 in Ireland

{{Reflist}}

{{Years in Scotland}}

Scotland

Category:Years of the 19th century in Scotland

Category:1810s in Scotland