1831 in Scotland

← 1830 1829 1828 1827 1826 1831 in Scotland → 1832 1833 1834 1835 1836
Centuries:	17th 18th 19th 20th 21st
Decades:	1810s 1820s 1830s 1840s 1850s
See also:	List of years in Scotland Timeline of Scottish history 1831 in: The UK • Wales • Ireland • Elsewhere

Events from the year 1831 in Scotland.

Incumbents

• Monarch — William IV (crowned 8 September)

Law officers

• Lord Advocate — Francis Jeffrey
• Solicitor General for Scotland — Henry Cockburn

Judiciary

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

Events

• Spring - The 12th-century Lewis chessmen are found in a sand-bank on the Isle of Lewis.
• 19–21 March — One of Goldsworthy Gurney’s steam road coaches runs from Edinburgh to Glasgow.
• May — Wellington Suspension Bridge over River Dee at Aberdeen opened to all traffic.
• 10 May — First steam locomotive to be built in Glasgow completed by Murdoch, Aitken & Co. for the Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway.
• Mid-May — Mineral traffic over Garnkirk and Glasgow Railway commences.
• 1 June
  • A regular horse-drawn passenger service between Leaend at Airdrie and Glasgow over the Ballochney, Monkland and Kirkintilloch and Garnkirk and Glasgow Railways commences.
  • One of Goldsworthy Gurney’s steam road coaches suffers a boiler explosion in Glasgow.
• 6 June — First iron steamboat to be launched on the River Clyde, Fairy Queen by John Neilson & Sons.
• 4 July — Opening of first section of Edinburgh and Dalkeith Railway, from St Leonards to Craighall, including St Leonards Tunnel, Scotland's earliest tunnel on a public railway, and the early cast iron bridge at Braid Burn (erected in March).
• August — The Dugald Stewart Monument in Edinburgh, designed by W. H. Playfair, is completed.
• 27 September — Formal opening of Garnkirk and Glasgow Railway: locomotive St Rollox hauls Scotland’s first steam-worked passenger train from the Townhead terminus at Glasgow to Gartsherrie.
• 16 December — Opening of first section of Dundee and Newtyle Railway, the first public railway in the north of Scotland (horse worked).
• 23 December — The second cholera pandemic (1829–51) reaches Scotland.
• The Ardrossan and Johnstone Railway opens as a waggonway from Johnstone to Kilwinning.
• Dunnet Head lighthouse, designed by Robert Stevenson, is built.
• North Church in Aberdeen, designed by John Smith, is opened.
• The Burns Monument, Edinburgh (on Calton Hill), is designed by Thomas Hamilton.
• William Wallace invents the eidograph.
• Glenugie Distillery is established as Invernettie at Peterhead by Donald McLeod.

Births

• 31 January — Alexander Balmain Bruce, theologian (died 1899)
• February — George Stewart, recipient of the Victoria Cross (died 1868 in England)
• 31 March — Archibald Scott Couper, organic chemist (died 1892)
• 2 April — David MacGibbon, architect (died 1902)
• 26 April — James Donaldson, classical scholar, educationalist and theological writer (died 1915)
• 28 April — Peter Tait, mathematical physicist (died 1901)
• 7 May — Richard Norman Shaw, architect (died 1912 in England)
• 28 May — Richard B. Angus, financier (died 1922 in Canada)
• 13 June — James Clerk Maxwell, physicist (died 1879 in England)
• 24 June — Robert Wallace, writer and politician (died 1899 in England)
• 3 July — Edmund Yates, writer (died 1894 in England)
• 17 August — John McLaren, politician and judge (died 1910)
• 13 September — Andrew Noble, physicist (died 1915)
• 17 October — Isa Craig, née Knox, poet (died 1903 in England)
• 23 November — David MacKay, recipient of the Victoria Cross (died 1880)
• 25 December — John Bartholomew, cartographer (died 1893)

Deaths

• 14 January — Henry Mackenzie, novelist (born 1745)
• 4 February — William Ritchie, newspaper editor (born 1781)
• 14 February — Robert Brown, agriculturalist (born 1757)
• 22 March — William Symington, engineer and steamboat builder (born 1764; died in London)
• May — James Campbell, army officer (born 1745)
• 1 July — Archibald Cochrane, 9th Earl of Dundonald, industrial chemist (born 1748; died in Paris)
• 16 August — Sir Hugh Innes, politician (born c. 1764)
• 17 August — Patrick Nasmyth, landscape painter (born 1787)
• Joseph Lowe, economist

The Arts

• James Hogg publishes Songs, by the Ettrick Shepherd.
• The Literary and Commercial Society of Glasgow is last known to be active.

See also

• 1831 in the United Kingdom