1817 in Scotland

← 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 • Elsewhere

Events from the year 1817 in Scotland .

Incumbents

Further information: Politics of Scotland and Order of precedence in Scotland

Law officers

• Lord Advocate – Alexander Maconochie
• Solicitor General for Scotland – James Wedderburn

Judiciary

• Lord President of the Court of Session – Lord Granton
• Lord Justice General – The Duke of Montrose
• Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Boyle

Events

• 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.
• 20 May – Royal Botanic Institution of Glasgow founded by Thomas Hopkirk and others to establish a Glasgow Botanic Garden. ^[3]
• June – Union Canal authorised.
• 10 July – David Brewster patents the kaleidoscope. ^[4]
• 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. ^[5]
• 4 December – The Inverness Courier is first published as a newspaper by John and Christian Isobel Johnstone.
• Dingwall Canal completed. ^[6]
• 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. ^[7]
• 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

• 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

• 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

• 19 September – the body of poet Robert Burns (died 1796) is moved to a new mausoleum in Dumfries. ^[8]
• 31 December – Walter Scott's novel Rob Roy is published anonymously.

See also

• Timeline of Scottish history
• 1817 in Ireland

References

1. "The Scotsman". Edinburgh: The Scotsman Digital Archive. 25 January 1817. Retrieved 6 November 2012.
2. Braid, James (June 1817). "Account of the Fatal Accident which happened in the Leadhills Company's Mines, the 1st March, 1817". The Scots Magazine and Edinburgh Literary Miscellany. 79: 414–416.
3. "James Jeffray". The University of Glasgow Story. University of Glasgow. Retrieved 17 July 2022.
4. British patent no. 4136. "Brewster Patent" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 July 2011. Retrieved 31 May 2011.
5. Gilley, Sheridan; Stanley, Brian (2005). World Christianities c. 1815–c. 1914. Cambridge History of Christianity, volume 8. Cambridge University Press. p. 301. ISBN   978-0-521-81456-0.
6. Historic Environment Scotland. "Dingwall Canal (Site no. NH55NE 24)" . Retrieved 3 July 2025.
7. "Corsewall". Northern Lighthouse Board. Archived from the original on 2 October 2006. Retrieved 27 August 2014.
8. "Robert Burns Mausoleum". Undiscovered Scotland. Retrieved 27 August 2014.