1812 in Scotland

Incumbents

• Monarch – George III

  Law officers

• Lord Advocate – Archibald Colquhoun
• Solicitor General for Scotland – David Monypenny

  Judiciary

• Lord President of the Court of Session – Lord Granton
• Lord Justice General – The Duke of Montrose
• Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Boyle

  Events

• 1 January – Tron riot in Edinburgh concludes.
• March – meeting in Edinburgh to discuss formation of the Scottish Widows Fund and Life Assurance Society.
• 6 July – the Kilmarnock and Troon Railway becomes the first public railway line to open in Scotland. It begins life as a 9.5-mile, horse-drawn waggonway to carry coal from Kilmarnock to Troon harbour. On 27 June the horse-drawn passenger coach Caledonia began running over the line between Troon and Gargieston, near Kilmarnock.
• 12 July – first Protestant Orange march in Scotland held in Glasgow, attracting hostile Catholic crowds.
• August – Henry Bell's begins a passenger service on the River Clyde between Glasgow and Greenock, the first commercially successful steamboat service in Europe.
• November – first bridge at Bonar Bridge completed in cast iron to the design of Thomas Telford.
• Ongoing – Highland Clearances.
• Brackla distillery built by Captain William Fraser of Brackla House on the estate of Cawdor Castle.
• Glasgow Bible Society established.
• Gaelic chapel opens in London.

  Births

• 3 February – William Fraser Tolmie, scientist and politician in Canada
• 29 February – James Milne Wilson, Premier of Tasmania
• 26 March – Charles Mackay, writer
• 4 April – George Grub, church historian
• 27 May – Robert Stirling Newall, engineer and astronomer
• 3 June – Norman Macleod, Church of Scotland minister
• 2 September – Kirkpatrick Macmillan, inventor of the bicycle
• 23 December – Samuel Smiles, author and reformer

  Deaths

• 23 January – Robert Craufurd, general
• 14 May – Duncan Ban MacIntyre, Gaelic poet

  The arts

• William Tennant's ottava rima mock-heroic poem Anster Fair is published, the first use of this Italian style in Britain.