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 • Elsewhere

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.
• 21 March – one of Goldsworthy Gurney’s steam road coaches runs from Edinburgh to Glasgow.^[1]
• 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.^[2]
• Mid-May – mineral traffic over Garnkirk and Glasgow Railway commences.^[3]
• 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.^[3]
  • One of Goldsworthy Gurney’s steam road coaches suffers a boiler explosion in Glasgow.^[4]
• 6 June – first iron steamboat to be launched on the River Clyde, Fairy Queen by John Neilson & Sons.^[5]
• 4 July – opening of first section of Edinburgh and Dalkeith Railway, from St Leonards to Craighall,^[6] 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.^[3]
• 16 December – opening of first section of Dundee and Newtyle Railway, the first public railway in the north of Scotland (horse worked).^[7]
• second cholera pandemic (1829–51) reaches Scotland.^[8]
• The
  waggonway from Johnstone to Kilwinning.^[9]
• 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.
• eidograph.^[10]
• Talisker, Skye
  , by Hugh and Kenneth MacAskill.

• 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
  )
• 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)^[12]
• 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
  )

• 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)
• landscape painter (born 1787
  )
• Joseph Lowe, economist

The arts

• James Hogg publishes Songs, by the Ettrick Shepherd.^[13]
• The Literary and Commercial Society of Glasgow is last known to be active.

See also

• 1831 in Ireland

References