1801 in Scotland

Incumbents

• Monarch – George III

  Law officers

• Lord Advocate – Robert Dundas of Arniston; then Charles Hope
• Solicitor General for Scotland – Robert Blair

  Judiciary

• Lord President of the Court of Session – Lord Succoth
• Lord Justice General – The Duke of Montrose
• Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Eskgrove

  Events

• 1 January – legislative union of Great Britain and Ireland completed under the Act of Union 1800, bringing about the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
• 10 March – the first British census is carried out, with the Scottish counts undertaken by schoolmasters. The population of Scotland is determined to be 1,608,420.
• 4 June – Soldiers of the Ross and Cromarty Rangers fire on a mob in Aberdeen celebrating the King's birthday, killing two.
• 18 July – Crinan Canal opened.
• First complete Bible translation into Scottish Gaelic, Am Bìoball Gàidhlig, is published.
• Dundee Courier & Argus first published.
• John Cary publishes A New Map of Scotland.
• Second Elgin Academy school building constructed.
• Edinburgh town council resolves to drain The Meadows.
• John Crabbie of Leith begins to deal in ginger.
• Chivas Brothers open a grocery store in Aberdeen which will blend Chivas Regal whisky.

  Births

• 4 January – James Giles, landscape painter
• 14 January – Jane Welsh Carlyle, née Jane Baillie Welsh, letter-writer
• 2 February – George Maclean, colonial governor
• 31 May – Robert Rankin, timber merchant and shipowner
• 7 June – Charles Cowan, papermaker and Radical politician
• 24 June – David Haggart, thief and murderer
• 4 July – James Johnstone, Liberal politician
• 21 August – Benjamin Boyd, settler in New South Wales
• 31 August – William Downe Gillon, Whig politician
• 7 November – Robert Dale Owen, social reformer
• Alexander Thom, almanac editor

• Deaths

• 14 February – Robert Paterson, stonemason
• 28 March – Sir Ralph Abercromby, general
• 10 May – Richard Gall, poet
• 30 May – John Millar, philosopher
• 11 October – John Donaldson, miniature painter
• 25 December – Andrew Lumisden, Jacobite
• Jean Glover, poet and singer

  The arts

• 21 July – Greenock Burns Club is established to honour the memory of poet Robert Burns and Poems Ascribed to Robert Burns is published.
• James Hogg publishes Scottish Pastorals, Poems, Songs.