1815 in Scotland

Incumbents

• Monarch – George III

  Law officers

• Lord Advocate – Archibald Colquhoun
• Solicitor General for Scotland – Alexander Maconochie

  Judiciary

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

  Events

• February/March – foundation stone of Montrose Academy laid.
• 18 June – Battle of Waterloo: Ensign Charles Ewart of the Royal Scots Greys captures the French Imperial Eagle standard.
• 1 July – Union Bank of Scotland opens.
• 19 September – foundation stones for Regent Bridge and Calton Jail in Edinburgh laid.
• Hackness Martello towers in Orkney built.
• The Nelson Monument, Edinburgh, on Calton Hill, is dedicated.
• Dunans and Ferness Bridges and Avoch harbour are completed to the designs of Thomas Telford.
• Glenfinnan Monument erected to mark the landing of "Bonnie Prince Charlie" at the start of the Jacobite rising of 1745 to the design of James Gillespie Graham.
• Armadale Castle on Skye is built in the style of Scottish Baronial architecture to the design of James Gillespie Graham.
• A Jury Court as a division of the Court of Session is introduced.
• Regius Professorships at the University of Glasgow in Midwifery and Surgery are established by King George III.
• The Scottish Widows Fund and Life Assurance Society opens to business as Scotland's first mutual life insurance office.
• On Islay, Ardbeg distillery begins commercial production and Laphroaig distillery is established by Donald and Alexander Johnston.
• The Clyde Shipping Company is set up by John Henderson, William Croil, Donald McPhee and George Jardine Kidston to provide services by paddle steamer.
• Pringle of Scotland, knitwear manufacturer, is established by Robert Pringle in the Borders.
• John Fletcher Macfarlan takes over the family apothecary business in Edinburgh, the predecessor of MacFarlan Smith, and begins to manufacture laudanum.

  Births

• 11 January
• * John A. Macdonald, first Prime Minister of Canada
• * David Stevenson, lighthouse engineer
• 22 January – William Brodie, sculptor
• 25 March – George Thomson, shipbuilder
• 1 April – William Chalmers Burns, evangelical missionary to China
• 19 May
• * Kate Dickens, née Catherine Hogarth, wife of Charles Dickens
• * Hugh Fraser, retailer
• 11 June – W McEwan, cricketer
• 12 June – James Valentine, photographer
• 29 August – James Fenton, railway engineer
• 20 December – James Legge, Congregationalist missionary to China
• Thomas Stuart Smith, painter and benefactor

  Deaths

• 14 January – William Creech, publisher and Lord Provost of Edinburgh
• 4 February – John Ferriar, physician and writer
• 9 February – Claudius Buchanan, theologian, Church of England missionary to India
• 23 February – William Duff, Presbyterian minister and writer on psychology
• 10 April – William Roxburgh, Scottish surgeon and botanist
• 26 August – John Spalding, politician
• 8 September – Andrew Graham, naturalist
• 28 September – Gilbert Gerard, theological writer
• 9 December – Patrick Miller of Dalswinton, banker and steamboat promoter
• Thomas Keith, soldier

  The arts

• Christian Isobel Johnstone's novel Clan-Albin: A National Tale is published.
• Robert Kirk's The Secret Commonwealth, Gaelic folklore collected in 1691/92, is first published.
• Walter Scott's narrative poem The Lord of the Isles and anonymous novel Guy Mannering are published.
• 6-year-old Edgar Allan Poe attends school in Irvine, North Ayrshire.