1819 in Scotland

Incumbents

• Monarch – George III

  Law officers

• Lord Advocate – Alexander Maconochie; then Sir William Rae, Bt
• Solicitor General for Scotland – James Wedderburn

  Judiciary

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

  Events

• 14 May – the first all iron-hulled vessel, the barge Vulcan, is launched on the Monkland Canal at Faskine, Airdrie for use as a horse-drawn passenger boat between Edinburgh and Glasgow on the Forth and Clyde Canal.
• 13 June – Highland Clearances: Strathnaver clearances begin on the estates of the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, enforced by Patrick Sellar with burning of crofts.
• August – three ships set out from Oban carrying migrants to Canada.
• 17 August–1 October – English poet Robert Southey joins civil engineer Thomas Telford on a tour of his Scottish projects. A replacement Highbridge near Spean Bridge, designed by Telford, is built this year.
• 18 August – Regent Bridge, Edinburgh, opened.
• September – Thomas Chalmers becomes first minister of St John's Parish Church in Glasgow where he puts into practice his model evangelical ideas for alleviating the material and spiritual poverty generated by industrialisation by fostering independence through personal contact, parochial care and the establishment of schools.
• The publisher Collins is founded as a printer of religious literature in Glasgow by William Collins.
• W. & R. Chambers, established by brothers William Chambers of Glenormiston and Robert Chambers in Edinburgh, begin publishing.
• The Ordnance Survey begins mapping in Scotland, in the south west, although this survey will be aborted.
• Brora distillery is established as "Clynelish" by the Marquess of Stafford at Brora.
• First pump room opened at the spa town of Strathpeffer.

  Births

• 22 January – Hugh McColl, pioneer of irrigation
• 25 January – Gideon Lang, settler
• 28 March – William Cross Yuille, settler
• 10 April – James Logan, lawyer
• 27 April – William Muir, Orientalist and colonial administrator
• 26 May – George Thomson, missionary and botanist
• 2 July – George Young, Lord Young, judge
• 3 July – William Smith, Roman Catholic Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh
• 14 July – Benjamin Blyth, civil engineer
• 22 July – John Murdoch, evangelist and educationalist
• 30 July – John Campbell Shairp, man of letters
• 2 August – William Walls, lawyer and industrialist
• 25 August – Allan Pinkerton, private detective
• 3 September – Alexander Campbell Fraser, philosopher
• 7 September – Aeneas William Mackintosh, Liberal politician
• 6 November – Charles James Campbell, merchant and politician in Nova Scotia
• 13 November – Peter Sinclair, farmer and politician in Prince Edward Island
• 28 November – Walter Montgomerie Neilson, steam locomotive manufacturer
• James Cassie, painter
• James Miln, antiquary

  Deaths

• 14 February – William Ogilvie of Pittensear, classicist, numismatist and land reformer
• 12 March – Robert Watt, physician and bibliographer
• 17 June – Robert Dundas of Arniston, judge
• 20 July – John Playfair, natural philosopher
• 25 August – James Watt, inventor
• 15 December – Daniel Rutherford, physician, chemist and botanist

  The arts

• Walter Scott's novels Ivanhoe, The Bride of Lammermoor and A Legend of Montrose are published anonymously.
• The Harp of Caledonia: a collection of songs, ancient and modern, chiefly Scottish, compiled by John Struthers, is published in Glasgow; and The Harp of Renfrewshire: a collection of songs and other poetical pieces, compiled by William Motherwell, is published in Paisley.