1756 in Scotland

Incumbents

• Monarch – George II

  Law officers

• Lord Advocate – Robert Dundas the younger
• Solicitor General for Scotland – Andrew Pringle of Alemore

  Judiciary

• Lord President of the Court of Session – Lord Glendoick
• Lord Justice General – Lord Ilay
• Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Tinwald

  Events

• 21 April – James Montgomery, a slave, escapes from a ship bound for Virginia at Port Glasgow and flees to Edinburgh where he is recaptured and begins the legal case of Montgomery v Sheddan in an attempt to gain his freedom.
• 1 November – Wanlockhead Miners' Library set up.
• A decision of the Court of Session establishes that tenants may easily be removed by the local sheriff.
• The planned industrial village of Charlestown, Fife, is begun by Charles Bruce, 5th Earl of Elgin.
• Church of St Andrew's in the Square, Glasgow, designed by Allan Dreghorn, is completed.
• 73rd Regiment of Foot first formed.
• Physician Francis Home publishes Experiments on Bleaching in Edinburgh.

  Births

• 4 January – Hugh Johnston, merchant and politician in New Brunswick
• 4 March – Henry Raeburn, portrait painter
• 10 April – John West, mathematician
• 31 May – James Currie, physician and editor of Burns' poetry
• 23 September – John Loudon McAdam, road engineer
• 30 October – James Perry, born Pirie, journalist
• December – Sir William Honyman, Lord Armadale, landowner and judge
• Ranald MacDonald, Roman Catholic bishop

  Deaths

• 16 April – Andrew Plummer, physician and chemist
• 24 April – Archibald Campbell, Church of Scotland minister and moral philosopher
• 3 October – William McGibbon, composer and violinist
• 6 December – Anne O'Brien, 2nd Countess of Orkney
• George Halket, schoolmaster poet and songwriter

  The arts

• January – Tobias Smollett becomes the first editor of The Critical Review, published in Edinburgh.
• 14 December – Rev. John Home's blank verse tragedy Douglas is performed for the first time, in Edinburgh, with considerable success, in spite of the opposition of the local church presbytery, who summon Rev. Alexander Carlyle to answer for having attended its representation; however, it fails in its early promise to set up a new Scottish dramatic tradition.