1838 in Scotland

← 1837 1836 1835 1834 1833 1838 in Scotland → 1839 1840 1841 1842 1843
Centuries:	17th 18th 19th 20th 21st
Decades:	1810s 1820s 1830s 1840s 1850s
See also:	List of years in Scotland Timeline of Scottish history 1838 in: The UK • Wales • Elsewhere

Events from the year 1838 in Scotland .

Incumbents

Law officers

• Lord Advocate – John Murray
• Solicitor General for Scotland – Andrew Rutherfurd

Judiciary

• Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice General – Lord Granton
• Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Boyle

Events

• Winter 1837/38 – the Neolithic settlement of Rinyo on Rousay in Orkney is discovered.
• January – leaders of the Glasgow cotton spinners' strike are sentenced to penal transportation (but cleared of murder). ^[1]
• 2 March – Clydesdale Bank founded in Glasgow. ^[2]
• 4–22 April – Leith-built paddle steamer SS Sirius (1837) makes the transatlantic crossing from Cork to New York in eighteen days, though not using steam continuously. ^[3]
• 1 May – Jenners department store established as drapers in Princes Street, Edinburgh. ^[4]
• 21 May
  • Chartist meeting on Glasgow Green at which the People's Charter is launched. ^[5]
  • Elizabeth Jeffrey of Carluke is hanged in Glasgow for poisoning a neighbour and a lodger. ^[6]
• c. June – Robert Napier receives his first contract from the Admiralty, for supply of side-lever engines for installation in HM paddle sloops Vesuvius and Stromboli. ^[7]
• 4 July – Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway authorised. ^[8]
• 25 July – Caledonian Curling Club founded in Edinburgh.
• 4 August – the Court Journal prints a rumour that Archibald Montgomerie, 13th Earl of Eglinton, is going to host a great jousting tournament at his castle in Scotland. A few weeks later he confirms this. ^[9]
• 16 August – Debtors (Scotland) Act 1838 passed.
• 7 September – Dundee paddle steamer Forfarshire (1834), homeward bound from Hull, is wrecked on the Farne Islands off the north east coast of England with the loss of more than 40 people; Grace Darling rescues nine survivors. ^[10]
• The Hebridean islands of Barra and Benbecula are sold by the MacNeils and Ranald MacDonald respectively to Colonel Gordon of Cluny.
• Glen Ord Distillery established on the Black Isle. ^[11]
• The Ordnance Survey commences the primary triangulation of Scotland. ^[12]
• David Brewster originates the stereoscope.
• Royal Scottish Academy is granted its Royal charter.
• Floors Castle is remodelled in Scottish Baronial style by William Henry Playfair for James Innes-Ker, 6th Duke of Roxburghe.

Births

• 13 January – William Miller, Free Church missionary and educationalist (died 1923)
• 29 January – David Gray, poet (died 1861)
• 22 February – John Joseph Jolly Kyle, chemist in Argentina (died 1922 in Buenos Aires)
• 14 March – Robert Flint, Theologian and philosopher (died 1910)
• 25 March – William Wedderburn, civil servant in India (died 1918 in England)
• 26 March – Alexander Crum Brown, organic chemist (died 1922)
• 21 April – John Muir, conservationist (died 1914 in the United States)
• 17 May – William Esson, mathematician (died 1916 in England)
• 6 June – Thomas Blake Glover, merchant (died 1911 in Japan)
• 6 July – Thomas John MacLagan, doctor and pharmacologist (died 1903)
• 7 July – Thomas Davidson, poet (died 1870)
• 22 July – John McLagan, newspaper publisher (died 1901 in Canada)
• 6 August – Walter Shirlaw, artist in the United States (died 1909 in Spain)
• 3 September – David Bowman, botanist (died 1868 in Colombia)
• 4 September – William Gibson Sloan, Plymouth Brethren evangelist (died 1914 in the Faroe Islands)
• 6 September – George Ashdown Audsley, architect, artist, illustrator, writer, decorator and pipe organ designer (died 1925 in the United States)
• 9 September – Thomas Barker, mathematician (died 1907 in England)
• 10 October – William M'Intosh, physician and marine zoologist (died 1931)
• 16 October – John Smart, landscape painter (died 1899)
• 2 November – James Dykes Campbell, merchant and writer (died 1895)
• 4 November – Andrew Martin Fairbairn, theologian (died 1912 in England)
• 18 November – William Keith, landscape painter in California (died 1911 in the United States)
• John Firth, Orcadian folklorist (died 1922)
• Alexander Mackenzie, historian, author, magazine editor and politician (died 1898)
• Samuel McGaw recipient of the Victoria Cross, during the First Ashanti Expedition (died in 1878)
• Bruce James Talbert, interior designer (died 1881 in England)

Deaths

• 30 March – Thomas Balfour, politician (born 1810)
• 12 July – John Jamieson, lexicographer (born 1759)
• 27 July – David Hume, advocate (born 1757)
• 1 October – Charles Tennant, chemist and industrialist (born 1768)
• 7 November – Anne Grant, poet and author (born 1755)
• 16 November – Robert Cutlar Fergusson, lawyer and politician (born 1768)

The arts

• 31 August – scene painter David Roberts sets sail for Egypt to produce a series of drawings of the region for use as the basis for paintings and chromolithographs.
• November – Johann Strauss I and his orchestra visit Edinburgh and Glasgow.
• Alexander and John Bethune publish Tales and Sketches of the Scottish Peasantry. ^[13]
• Angus MacKay publishes A Collection of Ancient Piobaireachd or Highland Bagpipe Music. ^[14]

See also

• Scotland portal

• 1838 in Ireland

References

1. Wilson, Alexander (1970). The Chartist Movement in Scotland. Manchester University Press. ISBN   071900411X.
2. "Chronology of Scottish History". A Timeline of Scottish History. Rampant Scotland. Retrieved 14 May 2014.
3. "Steamship Curaçao". Archived from the original on 24 December 2010. Retrieved 2 February 2011.
4. A Hundred Years in Princes Street 1838-1938. Edinburgh: Jenners. 1938.
5. "Where History Happened: Chartism". History Extra. BBC. 12 May 2010. Retrieved 7 July 2014.
6. "May 21st – 21/5/1838 – Elizabeth Jeffrey – Carluke, Lanarkshire". Victorian Hangings. London: True Crime Library. Archived from the original on 14 July 2014. Retrieved 16 June 2014.
7. Napier, James (1904). "VI. Admiralty". The Life of Robert Napier of West Shandon. Edinburgh. Retrieved 15 March 2016.
8. "Edinburgh & Glasgow Railway". Engineering Timelines. Retrieved 14 May 2014.
9. Girouard, Mark (1981). The Return to Camelot: Chivalry and the English Gentleman . New Haven: Yale University Press. p.  92.
10. Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN   0-14-102715-0.
11. "Glen Ord Scotch Whisky Distillery". ScotchWhisky.net. Archived from the original on 14 May 2014. Retrieved 14 May 2014.
12. Fleet, Christopher; Withers, Charles W. J. "Ordnance Survey Maps - Six-inch 1st edition, Scotland, 1843-1882: A Scottish paper landscape". National Library of Scotland. Retrieved 5 September 2014.
13. Cox, Michael, ed. (2004). The Concise Oxford Chronology of English Literature . Oxford University Press. ISBN   0-19-860634-6.
14. "Alexander Johnston". National Galleries of Scotland . Retrieved 19 September 2022.