1834 in Scotland

Incumbents

• Monarch – William IV

  Law officers

• Lord Advocate – Francis Jeffrey until May; then John Murray until November; then Sir William Rae, Bt
• Solicitor General for Scotland – Henry Cockburn; then Andrew Skene; then Duncan McNeill

  Judiciary

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

  Events

• May – Dean Bridge in Edinburgh opened to horse and cart traffic.
• 29 July – a steam carriage designed by John Scott Russell on the Glasgow–Paisley road overturns and suffers a boiler explosion causing the death of four passengers.
• 9 October – first shipment of tea direct from India arrives at the Broomielaw quay in Glasgow.
• 26 December – Ursulines of Jesus take up residence at St Margaret’s Convent in the Whitehouse in Edinburgh, the first Roman Catholic convent established in Scotland since the Reformation; it will be another 5 years before the first such modern establishment in England.
• Naval architect John Scott Russell first observes a nondecaying solitary wave while watching a boat hauled through the water of the Union Canal near Edinburgh, subsequently using a tank to study the dependence of solitary wave velocities on amplitude and liquid depth.
• Thomas Henderson is appointed first Astronomer Royal for Scotland.
• Edinburgh Geological Society is established.
• Princess Royal Maternity Hospital is established as the Glasgow Lying-in Hospital and Dispensary.
• Annan Bridge built by Robert Stevenson.
• Moffat Academy is established by merger of the local grammar and parish schools.
• Charles Randolph establishes the millwrighting business of Randolph & Elliott in the Tradeston district of Glasgow, predecessor of the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company.
• The McGeoch family establish a pawnbrokers in Paisley, predecessor of the chain store M&Co..
• The Second Statistical Account of Scotland begins publication under the auspices of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.
• The Evangelical Thomas Chalmers becomes chairman of the General Assembly's church extension committee.
• The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews gains its royal patronage.

  Births

• 27 January – Alexander Asher, politician and Solicitor General for Scotland
• 16 March – James Hector, geologist
• 5 April – Robert Rowand Anderson, architect
• 12 April – William Hope, soldier, recipient of the Victorian Cross
• 27 April – Margaret Macpherson Grant, heiress and philanthropist
• 22 August – George Kynoch, businessman
• 17 September – Robert Simpson, retail merchant
• 1 October – Mary Mackellar, née Cameron, Gaelic poet and translator
• 12 October – Mark MacTaggart-Stewart, né Stewart, politician
• 23 November – James Thomson, poet
• Probable date – Peter Dodds McCormick, schoolteacher, composer of the Australian national anthem

  Deaths

• 26 March – Jean Armour, widow of Robert Burns
• 9 June – John Henry Wishart, surgeon
• 12 July – David Douglas, botanist
• 2 September – Thomas Telford, civil engineer
• 16 September – William Blackwood, publisher and writer
• 21 September – Robert Edmonstone, painter
• 24 November – John Gillies, botanist
• 5 December – Thomas Pringle, writer, poet and abolitionist
• 7 December – Edward Irving, founder of the Catholic Apostolic Church
• Anne Forbes, portrait painter
• Probable date – Sarah Bezra Nicol, actress