1881 in Scotland

Incumbents

• Monarch – Victoria

  Law officers

• Lord Advocate – John McLaren until August; then John Blair Balfour
• Solicitor General for Scotland – John Blair Balfour; then Alexander Asher

  Judiciary

• Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice General – Lord Glencorse
• Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Moncreiff

  Events

• 1 March – the Cunard Line's, the first steel transatlantic liner, is launched at J. & G. Thomson's shipyard at Clydebank.
• 12 March – Andrew Watson of Glasgow's Queen's Park F.C. captains the Scotland national football team in a 6–1 victory against England, becoming the world's first black international Association football player.
• 1 July – formation, under the Childers Reforms of the British Army, of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, Cameronians, Gordon Highlanders, Highland Light Infantry and Seaforth Highlanders.
• 20/21 July – 58 men, the crews of ten fishing boats from Yell, Shetland, are drowned in a sudden storm.
• 25 August – Edinburgh Royal Review of Volunteers : Large numbers of Volunteer Forces from all over Scotland parade before Queen Victoria in Holyrood Park on a day of prolonged heavy rainfall.
• 14 October – the Eyemouth disaster : a severe storm strikes the Berwickshire coast; 189 fishermen die.
• 21 December – the Aberdeen Line's SS Aberdeen, the first oceangoing ship successfully powered by a triple expansion steam engine, designed by Alexander Carnegie Kirk, is launched at Robert Napier & Sons' yard at Govan.
• The remains of Alexander Lindsay, 25th Earl of Crawford, are stolen from the family crypt on the Dunecht estate.
• Memorial cairn erected at the site of the Battle of Culloden.
• Bruichladdich distillery established on the Rinns of Islay.
• Clydebank Co-operative Society formed.
• Inverness Museum and Art Gallery originally opened.
• Fettesian-Lorettonian Club established as a joint sporting club of the two named Edinburgh public schools, primarily for the playing of rugby union.

  Births

• 29 March – Charles Jarvis, soldier, Victoria Cross recipient
• 6 August – Alexander Fleming, biologist, pharmacologist and botanist
• 2 November – Tom Johnston, socialist politician
• 6 November – Alfred David McAlpine, civil engineering contractor
• 1 December – Alastair Denniston, cryptanalyst
• 25 December – Willie Gallacher, trade unionist and communist MP

  Deaths

• 22 August – John Hill Burton, advocate, historian and economist
• 30 October – William Brodie, sculptor
• 31 October – Alexander Macdonald, miner, trade unionist and Lib–Lab MP