1803 in Scotland

Incumbents

• Monarch – George III

  Law officers

• Lord Advocate – 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

• 4 January – William Symington demonstrates his Charlotte Dundas, the "first practical steamboat".
• 27 July – Caledonian Canal authorized by Act of Parliament and construction begins; Thomas Telford also this year begins work on improving roads in Scotland under the auspices of the Commissioners of Highland Roads and Bridges. and on his recommendation the British Fisheries Society acquires the site of Pulteneytown at Wick for development.
• Kelso Bridge, designed by John Rennie, completed.
• First Boulton and Watt steam engine in Scotland installed at an Aberdeen paper mill.
• Lismore Seminary is opened by the Catholic Church.
• Most of the 'Luckenbooths' in High Street, Edinburgh are demolished, opening up the prospect of St Giles' Cathedral.

  Births

• 15 January – Marjorie Fleming, child writer
• 3 April – David Bryce, architect
• 16 April – Edward Maitland, Lord Barcaple, judge
• 12 July – Thomas Guthrie, Free Church preacher and philanthropist
• 10 September – Robert Wilson, mechanical engineer, inventor of the screw propeller
• 16 October – James Edward Alexander, soldier, author and traveller
• 25 December – Donald Gregory, antiquarian and his twin brother William Gregory, chemist and psychic investigator
• George Patton, Lord Glenalmond, judge

  Deaths

• 2 April – Sir James Montgomery, 1st Baronet, politician and judge
• 6 April – William Hamilton, diplomat
• 3 June – Lord George Murray, Bishop of St David's and developer of the UK's first optical telegraph
• 18 August – James Beattie, poet and philosopher
• Approximate date – Johnnie Notions, self-taught physician, pioneer of inoculation

  The arts

• Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland, A. D. 1803 written by Dorothy Wordsworth