← 1786 1785 1784 1783 1782 1787 in Scotland → 1788 1789 1790 1791 1792
Centuries:	16th 17th 18th 19th 20th
Decades:	1760s 1770s 1780s 1790s 1800s
See also:	List of years in Scotland Timeline of Scottish history 1787 in: Great Britain • Wales • Ireland • Elsewhere

Events from the year 1787 in Scotland.

Incumbents[edit]

• 
  Monarch – George III
  

Law officers[edit]

• 
  Lord Advocate – Ilay Campbell
  


• 
  Solicitor General for Scotland – Robert Dundas of Arniston
  

Judiciary[edit]

• 
  Lord President of the Court of Session – Lord Arniston, the younger until 13 December; then from 22 December, Lord Glenlee
  


• 
  Lord Justice General – The Viscount Stormont
  


• 
  Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Barskimming, then Lord Braxfield
  

Events[edit]

• 11 January – new Assembly Rooms opened in George Street, Edinburgh.


• 27 January – Bridge of Dun completed.^[1]
  


• 1 February – New Club, Edinburgh, founded as a private gentlemen's club.


• June
  
  
  
  • 
    Patrick Miller of Dalswinton demonstrates his design of manually-propelled paddleboat on the Firth of Forth.
  
  
  • 
    Kennetpans Distillery begins to operate a condensing rotative stationary steam engine designed by James Watt, the first in Scotland.^[2]
    
  
  
  
  


• Summer – Calton Weavers Strike. On 3 September, six of the Calton weavers are killed by troops.


• 1 December – Kinnaird Head Lighthouse first illuminated.


• 
  Catrine is developed on the River Ayr around one of the first cotton mills in Scotland by Claud Alexander of Ballochmyle in partnership with David Dale.^[3]
  


• The Scotch Distilling Act imposes a tax on gin exported from Scotland to England.


• 
  Kerelaw House and Tarbat House built.

Births[edit]

• 7 January – Patrick Nasmyth, landscape painter (died 1831 in London)


• 11 February – Alexander Maconochie, naval officer, geographer and penal reformer (died 1860 in England)


• 14 May – Alexander Laing, "the Brechin poet" (died 1857)


• 22 November – Robert Balmer, minister of the Secession Church (died 1844)


• 17 December – John Forbes, physician (died 1861 in England)


• 
  Susanna Hawkins, poet (died 1868)


• 
  Hugh Maxwell, lawyer and politician in New York (died 1873 in the United States)

Deaths[edit]

• 6 June – Robert Duff, naval officer (born c. 1721)


• 19 June – John Brown, theologian (born 1722)


• 5 September – John Brown, portrait-draftsman and painter in Edinburgh (born 1749)


• 27 December – Thomas Hay, 9th Earl of Kinnoull, politician (born 1710)


• 
  Lady Anne Farquharson-MacKintosh, Jacobite (born 1723)

The arts[edit]

• 17 April – the Edinburgh edition of Robert Burns' Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect is published by William Creech including a portrait of Burns by Alexander Nasmyth. The poet has great social success in the city's literary circles; 16-year-old Walter Scott meets him at the house of Adam Ferguson. Burns also writes the first version of "The Battle of Sherramuir" this year.


• 4 December – Burns meets Agnes Maclehose at a party given by Miss Erskine Nimmo.^[4]
  


• 
  The Scots Musical Museum begins publication.

Sport[edit]

• May – Glasgow Golf Club founded.

See also[edit]

• Timeline of Scottish history


• 1787 in Great Britain

References[edit]