# 1838 in Scotland

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Events from the year 1838 in Scotland.

## Incumbents
### Law officers

* Lord Advocate – John Murray
* Solicitor General for Scotland – Andrew Rutherfurd

### Judiciary

* Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice General – Lord Granton
* Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Boyle

## Events

* Winter 1837/38 – the Neolithic settlement of Rinyo on Rousay in Orkney is discovered.
* January – leaders of the Glasgow cotton spinners' strike are sentenced to penal transportation (but cleared of murder).
* 2 March – Clydesdale Bank founded in Glasgow.
* 4–22 April – Leith-built paddle steamer SS Sirius (1837) makes the transatlantic crossing from Cork to New York in eighteen days, though not using steam continuously.
* 1 May – Jenners department store established as drapers in Princes Street, Edinburgh.
* 21 May
** Chartist meeting on Glasgow Green at which the People's Charter is launched.
** Elizabeth Jeffrey of Carluke is hanged in Glasgow for poisoning a neighbour and a lodger.
* c. June – Robert Napier receives his first contract from the Admiralty, for supply of side-lever engines for installation in HM paddle sloops Vesuvius and Stromboli.
* 4 July – Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway authorised.
* 25 July – Caledonian Curling Club founded in Edinburgh.
* 4 August – the Court Journal prints a rumour that Archibald Montgomerie, 13th Earl of Eglinton, is going to host a great jousting tournament at his castle in Scotland. A few weeks later he confirms this.
* 16 August – Debtors (Scotland) Act 1838 passed.
* 7 September – Dundee paddle steamer Forfarshire (1834), homeward bound from Hull, is wrecked on the Farne Islands off the north east coast of England with the loss of more than 40 people; Grace Darling rescues nine survivors.
* The Hebridean islands of Barra and Benbecula are sold by the MacNeils and Ranald MacDonald respectively to Colonel Gordon of Cluny.
* Glen Ord Distillery established on the Black Isle.
* The Ordnance Survey commences the primary triangulation of Scotland.
* David Brewster originates the stereoscope.
* Royal Scottish Academy is granted its Royal charter.
* Floors Castle is remodelled in Scottish Baronial style by William Henry Playfair for James Innes-Ker, 6th Duke of Roxburghe.

## Births

* 13 January – William Miller, Free Church missionary and educationalist (died 1923)
* 29 January – David Gray, poet (died 1861)
* 22 February – John Joseph Jolly Kyle, chemist in Argentina (died 1922 in Buenos Aires)
* 14 March – Robert Flint, Theologian and philosopher (died 1910)
* 25 March – William Wedderburn, civil servant in India (died 1918 in England)
* 26 March – Alexander Crum Brown, organic chemist (died 1922)
* 21 April – John Muir, conservationist (died 1914 in the United States)
* 17 May – William Esson, mathematician (died 1916 in England)
* 6 June – Thomas Blake Glover, merchant (died 1911 in Japan)
* 6 July – Thomas John MacLagan, doctor and pharmacologist (died 1903)
* 7 July – Thomas Davidson, poet (died 1870)
* 22 July – John McLagan, newspaper publisher (died 1901 in Canada)
* 6 August – Walter Shirlaw, artist in the United States (died 1909 in Spain)
* 3 September – David Bowman, botanist (died 1868 in Colombia)
* 4 September – William Gibson Sloan, Plymouth Brethren evangelist (died 1914 in the Faroe Islands)
* 6 September – George Ashdown Audsley, architect, artist, illustrator, writer, decorator and pipe organ designer (died 1925 in the United States)
* 9 September – Thomas Barker, mathematician (died 1907 in England)
* 10 October – William M'Intosh, physician and marine zoologist (died 1931)
* 16 October – John Smart, landscape painter (died 1899)
* 2 November – James Dykes Campbell, merchant and writer (died 1895)
* 4 November – Andrew Martin Fairbairn, theologian (died 1912 in England)
* 18 November – William Keith, landscape painter in California (died 1911 in the United States)
* John Firth, Orcadian folklorist (died 1922)
* Alexander Mackenzie, historian, author, magazine editor and politician (died 1898)
* Samuel McGaw recipient of the Victoria Cross, during the First Ashanti Expedition (died in 1878)
* Bruce James Talbert, interior designer (died 1881 in England)

## Deaths

* 30 March – Thomas Balfour, politician (born 1810)
* 12 July – John Jamieson, lexicographer (born 1759)
* 27 July – David Hume, advocate (born 1757)
* 1 October – Charles Tennant, chemist and industrialist (born 1768)
* 7 November – Anne Grant, poet and author (born 1755)
* 16 November – Robert Cutlar Fergusson, lawyer and politician (born 1768)

## The arts

* 31 August – scene painter David Roberts sets sail for Egypt to produce a series of drawings of the region for use as the basis for paintings and chromolithographs.
* November – Johann Strauss I and his orchestra visit Edinburgh and Glasgow.
* Alexander and John Bethune publish Tales and Sketches of the Scottish Peasantry.
* Angus MacKay publishes A Collection of Ancient Piobaireachd or Highland Bagpipe Music.