1787 in Scotland

Incumbents

• Monarch – George III

  Law officers

• Lord Advocate – Ilay Campbell
• Solicitor General for Scotland – Robert Dundas of Arniston

  Judiciary

• Lord President of the Court of Session – Lord Arniston, the younger until 13 December; then from 22 December, Lord Glenlee
• Lord Justice General – The Viscount Stormont
• Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Barskimming, then Lord Braxfield

  Events

• 11 January – new Assembly Rooms opened in George Street, Edinburgh.
• 27 January – Bridge of Dun completed.
• 1 February – New Club, Edinburgh, founded as a private gentlemen's club.
• June
• * Patrick Miller of Dalswinton demonstrates his design of manually-propelled paddleboat on the Firth of Forth.
• * Kennetpans Distillery begins to operate a condensing rotative stationary steam engine designed by James Watt, the first in Scotland.
• Summer – Calton Weavers Strike. On 3 September, six of the Calton weavers are killed by troops.
• 1 December – Kinnaird Head Lighthouse first illuminated.
• Catrine is developed on the River Ayr around one of the first cotton mills in Scotland by Claud Alexander of Ballochmyle in partnership with David Dale.
• The Scotch Distilling Act imposes a tax on gin exported from Scotland to England.
• Kerelaw House and Tarbat House built.

  Births

• 7 January – Patrick Nasmyth, landscape painter
• 11 February – Alexander Maconochie, naval officer, geographer and penal reformer
• 14 May – Alexander Laing, "the Brechin poet"
• 22 November – Robert Balmer, minister of the Secession Church
• 17 December – John Forbes, physician
• Susanna Hawkins, poet
• Hugh Maxwell, lawyer and politician in New York

  Deaths

• 6 June – Robert Duff, naval officer
• 19 June – John Brown, theologian
• 5 September – John Brown, portrait-draftsman and painter in Edinburgh
• 27 December – Thomas Hay, 9th Earl of Kinnoull, politician
• Lady Anne Farquharson-MacKintosh, Jacobite

  The arts

• 17 April – the Edinburgh edition of Robert Burns' Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect is published by William Creech including a portrait of Burns by Alexander Nasmyth. The poet has great social success in the city's literary circles; 16-year-old Walter Scott meets him at the house of Adam Ferguson. Burns also writes the first version of "The Battle of Sherramuir" this year.
• 4 December – Burns meets Agnes Maclehose at a party given by Miss Erskine Nimmo.
• The Scots Musical Museum begins publication.

  Sport

• May – Glasgow Golf Club founded.