1830 in Scotland

Incumbents

• Monarch – George IV, William IV

  Law officers

• Lord Advocate – Sir William Rae, Bt until December; then Francis Jeffrey
• Solicitor General for Scotland – John Hope; then Henry Cockburn

  Judiciary

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

  Events

• 19 March – the suspension bridge at Montrose partly collapses due to movement of a crowd watching a boat race from it, with the loss of at least 4 lives.
• 17 May – meteorite falls on the North Inch at Perth.
• 27 May – Rev. Alexander Duff arrives in Calcutta as the Church of Scotland's first missionary to India.
• 13 July – Alexander Duff co-founds the General Assembly's Institution, the modern-day Scottish Church College, in Calcutta.
• November – Wellington Suspension Bridge over River Dee at Aberdeen opened to pedestrians.
• 16 December – Bridge of Don at Aberdeen opened.
• Twin-hulled iron paddle steamer Lord Dundas built for service on the Forth and Clyde Canal.
• McVitie's founded as McVitie & Price's biscuit bakery in Rose Street, Edinburgh.
• Annandale distillery opened.

  Births

• Early – Andrew Halliday, journalist and playwright
• 5 February – Lieutenant General James John McLeod Innes, recipient of the Victoria Cross
• 5 March – Charles Wyville Thomson, marine zoologist
• 15 March – John Ferguson, politician
• 5 April
• * Robert Francis Fairlie, steam locomotive designer
• * Alexander Muir, songwriter
• 16 July – Alexander Carnegie Kirk, mechanical engineer
• 3 September – Lewis Campbell, classicist
• 21 September – John Holms, textile mill owner and Liberal politician
• 22 October – Arthur John Burns, woollen mill owner and politician in Otago
• 30 October – Eliza Brightwen, naturalist
• John Crawford, sculptor

  Deaths

• 14 January – The Right Reverend Daniel Sandford, Bishop of Edinburgh
• 20 February – Robert Anderson, literary editor, biographer and critic
• 7 April – Henry Bell, engineer who introduced the first successful passenger steamboat service in Europe
• 3 July – John Campbell, advocate and politician
• 16 December – Sir James Donaldson printer and newspaper publisher, who bequeathed a large part of his estate to the founding of Donaldson's Hospital

  The arts

• Thomas Aird publishes his narrative poem The Captive of Fez.
• Sir Walter Scott publishes the plays Auchindrane and The Doom of Devorgoil.
• David Wilkie appointed Principal Painter in Ordinary to King William IV
• Completion of publication of the Edinburgh Encyclopædia, commenced in 1808
• 16 December – Felix Mendelssohn completes composition of his concert overture The Hebrides as Die einsame Insel.