1840 in Scotland

Incumbents

• Monarch – Victoria

  Law officers

• Lord Advocate – Andrew Rutherfurd
• Solicitor General for Scotland – James Ivory; then Thomas Maitland

  Judiciary

• Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice General – Lord Granton
• Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Boyle

  Events

• 10 January – Uniform Penny Post introduced throughout the United Kingdom, replacing the Uniform Fourpenny Post of 1839. From 6 May, the Penny Black, the world's first postage stamp, becomes valid for prepayment of postage. Advocates of the scheme include Robert Wallace and James Chalmers.
• 14 January – the first known baptisms by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Scotland take place in the River Clyde at Bishopton when Samuel Mulliner, a Scot who joined the church in Canada, baptizes Alexander and Jessie Hay. In May, Orson Pratt preaches from Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh.
• July – last known great auk in the British Isles caught and later killed on the islet of Stac an Armin, St Kilda, Scotland.
• 4 July – the Cunard Line's 700-ton wooden paddle steamer, launched by Robert Duncan & Company at Greenock on 5 February, departs from Liverpool bound for Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the first steam transatlantic passenger mail service. Scottish marine engineer Robert Napier is a major partner in the venture and has supplied the ship's engine.
• 21 July – first burial at the Southern Necropolis in Glasgow.
• 12 August – the Glasgow, Paisley, Kilmarnock and Ayr Railway is opened throughout between Glasgow Bridge Street railway station and Ayr, the first inter-urban railway in Scotland.
• 15 August – foundation stone of the Scott Monument in Edinburgh is laid.
• 31 August – the Slamannan Railway is opened.
• Approximate date – Forglen House, designed by John Smith, is completed.

  Births

• 1 January – Dugald Drummond, steam locomotive engineer
• 24 January – George Smith, Bishop of Argyll and the Isles
• 5 February
• * Charlotte Carmichael, pioneer of higher education for women
• * John Boyd Dunlop, inventor
• 3 March – Hugh Smellie, steam locomotive engineer
• 22 April – Thomas Clouston, psychiatrist
• 15 July – William Wilson Hunter, official of the Indian Civil Service
• 29 November – James Crichton-Browne, psychiatrist
• J. M. Brydon, architect

  Deaths

• 9 March – George Gleig, Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church
• 10 April – Alexander Nasmyth, painter