← 1816 1815 1814 1813 1812 1817 in Scotland → 1818 1819 1820 1821 1822
Centuries:	17th 18th 19th 20th 21st
Decades:	1790s 1800s 1810s 1820s 1830s
See also:	List of years in Scotland Timeline of Scottish history 1817 in: The UK • Wales • Ireland • Elsewhere

Events from the year 1817 in Scotland.

Incumbents[edit]

• 
  Monarch – George III
  

Law officers[edit]

• 
  Lord Advocate – Alexander Maconochie
  


• 
  Solicitor General for Scotland – James Wedderburn
  

Judiciary[edit]

• 
  Lord President of the Court of Session – Lord Granton
  


• 
  Lord Justice General – The Duke of Montrose
  


• 
  Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Boyle
  

Events[edit]

• 
  25 January – The Scotsman is first published in Edinburgh as a liberal weekly newspaper by lawyer William Ritchie and customs official Charles Maclaren.^[1]
  


• 
  1 March – suffocating fumes in the Leadhills lead mine kill seven.^[2]
  


• 
  1 April – Blackwood's Magazine is launched as the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine, a Tory publication. In October the publisher, William Blackwood, relaunches it as Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine.


• June – Union Canal authorised.


• 
  10 July – David Brewster patents the kaleidoscope.^[3]
  


• 
  15 October – school of whales seen in the Tay.


• November – Thomas Chalmers, in a sermon, appeals for a Christian effort to deal with the social condition of Glasgow.^[4]
  


• 
  4 December – The Inverness Courier is first published as a newspaper by John and Christian Isobel Johnstone.


• 
  Dingwall Canal completed.^[5]
  


• A typhus epidemic occurs in Edinburgh and Glasgow.


• 
  Dufftown founded by James Duff, 4th Earl Fife, in Moray.


• 
  St Andrew's Cathedral, Aberdeen, opened as St Andrew's Chapel within the Episcopal Church.


• Calton Gaol, Edinburgh, completed.


• 
  Old Tolbooth, Edinburgh, demolished.


• 
  Glasgow Botanic Gardens created.


• 
  Corsewall Lighthouse, designed by Robert Stevenson, first illuminated.^[6]
  


• 
  Thomas Telford's ferry piers at Invergordon and Inverbreakie are built.


• 
  Bladnoch distillery founded by John and Thomas McClelland near Wigtown.


• 
  Teaninich distillery founded by Hugh Munro at Alness.


• The post of Regius Professor of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow is established by King George III.


• Approximate date – the Kilmarnock and Troon Railway introduces into service The Duke, the first steam locomotive on a railway in Scotland.

Births[edit]

• February – Samuel Morison Brown, chemist, poet and essayist (died 1856)


• 
  15 February – Robert Angus Smith, atmospheric chemist (died 1884)


• 
  28 February – Walter Hood Fitch, botanical artist (died 1892)


• 
  9 April – Alexander Thomson, Greek Revival architect (died 1875)


• 
  29 April – Adam White, zoologist (died 1878)


• 17 May
  
  
  
  • 
    Thomas Davidson, palaeontologist (died 1885)
  
  
  • 
    John Ross, explorer (died 1903 in Australia)
  
  
  
  


• 
  22 May – James Macaulay, physician and literary editor (died 1902)


• 
  1 June – David Lyall, botanist (died 1895)


• 
  16 June – Alexander Forbes, bishop of Brechin (died 1875)


• 
  25 August – William Graham, wine merchant, art patron and Liberal politician (died 1885)


• 
  8 September – Stephen Hislop, Free Church missionary and geologist (died 1863 in India)


• 
  16 September – William Smith, architect (died 1891)


• 
  21 September – John Allan Broun, magnetologist (died 1879)


• 
  12 October – William Collins, publisher, Lord Provost of Glasgow and temperance activist (died 1895)


• 
  17 October – Alexander Mitchell, banker, railroad financier and Democratic politician (died 1887 in the United States)


• 
  29 October – Angus Macmillan, shipbuilder and politician on Prince Edward Island (died 1906 in Canada)


• 
  4 December – Thomas Thomson, military surgeon and botanist (died 1878 in India)


• 
  10 December – Alexander Wood, physician and inventor of the hypodermic syringe (died 1884)


• 
  John Millar, Lord Craighill, Solicitor General (died 1888)


• Approximate date – Marion Kirkland Reid, feminist (died 1902?)

Deaths[edit]

• 
  8 February – Francis Horner, Whig politician, journalist, lawyer and political economist (born 1778; died in Italy)


• 
  3 September – James Byres of Tonley, art dealer (born 1734)


• 
  2 October – Alexander Monro, anatomist (born 1733)


• 
  8 October – Henry Erskine, lawyer and Whig politician (born 1746)

The arts[edit]

• 
  19 September – the body of poet Robert Burns (died 1796) is moved to a new mausoleum in Dumfries.^[7]
  


• 
  31 December – Walter Scott's novel Rob Roy is published anonymously.

See also[edit]

• Timeline of Scottish history

References[edit]