1741 in Scotland

Incumbents

• Monarch – George II
• Secretary of State for Scotland: vacant

  Law officers

• Lord Advocate – Charles Erskine
• Solicitor General for Scotland – William Grant of Prestongrange

  Judiciary

• Lord President of the Court of Session – Lord Culloden
• Lord Justice General – Lord Ilay
• Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Milton

  Events

• 17 May – George Watson's College opens in Edinburgh as George Watson's Hospital.
• Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh moves to a new building designed by William Adam.
• Robert Foulis sets up a publishing business in Glasgow.
• Leadhills Miners' Library set up.
• Earliest known record of the Royal Order of Scotland within British Freemasonry.
• 47th Regiment of Foot raised in Scotland as General John Mordaunt's Regiment of Foot.

  Births

• 2 March – James Stuart, British Army officer, commander-in-chief of the Madras Army
• 23 August – James Hope-Johnstone, 3rd Earl of Hopetoun
• 25 August – Henry Hunter, Presbyterian minister and translator
• James Moncrief, military engineer
• William Russell, writer

  Deaths

• 18 March – Thomas Gordon, commodore in the Royal Scots Navy and admiral in the Imperial Russian Navy
• November – John Ker, academic and Latin poet