# 1831 in Scotland

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Events from the year 1831 in Scotland.

## Incumbents
### 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.
* 1 August – the Roman Catholic St Thomas's Church, Keith, is opened for worship.
* 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; Talisker distillery is opened at Carbost, Talisker, Skye, by Hugh and Kenneth MacAskill.

## 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)
* 18 July – John Skelton, lawyer, author and administrator (died 1897)
* 17 August – John McLaren, politician and judge (died 1910)
* 13 September – Andrew Noble, physicist (died 1915)
* 12 October – Helen Acquroff, pianist, singer, poet and music teacher (died 1887)
* 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.