1761 in Scotland

Incumbents

• Monarch – George III

  Law officers

• Lord Advocate – Thomas Miller of Glenlee
• Solicitor General for Scotland – James Montgomery jointly with Francis Garden

  Judiciary

• Lord President of the Court of Session – Lord Arniston, the younger
• Lord Justice General – Lord Ilay to 15 April; then from 27 June Marquess of Tweeddale
• Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Tinwald

  Events

• 22 October – Relief Church founded as a liberal Presbyterian denomination at Colinsburgh by Thomas Gillespie, Thomas Boston and Thomas Colier.
• Fenwick Weavers' Society formed at Fenwick, East Ayrshire.
• Penicuik House in Midlothian built in Palladian style on the site of an earlier house by Sir James Clerk, 3rd Baronet, for himself.
• Dunmore Pineapple built.

  Births

• 17 January – James Hall, geologist
• 7 June – John Rennie the Elder, civil engineer
• 27 August – William Young, Royal Navy officer
• 30 August – Archibald Elliot, architect
• October – Thomas Christie, radical political writer
• 8 October – Andrew Snape Douglas, Royal Navy captain
• 27 October – Matthew Baillie, physician and pathologist
• 13 November – John Moore, British Army general

  Deaths

• 15 April – Archibald Campbell, 3rd Duke of Argyll, politician, lawyer, businessman and soldier
• 22 October – Patrick Heron, politician
• 23 December – Alastair Ruadh MacDonnell, Jacobite

  The arts

• Robert Adam and Sir William Chambers are jointly appointed Architect of the King's Works to King George III of Great Britain.
• After March – Allan Ramsay appointed to succeed John Shackelton as Principal Painter in Ordinary to King George III.
• December – James Macpherson, supposedly translating "Ossian", publishes Fingal, an Ancient Epic Poem in Six Books, together with Several Other Poems composed by Ossian, the Son of Fingal, translated from the Gaelic Language.

  Sport

• Bruntsfield Links Golfing Society formed on the outskirts of Edinburgh.