1887 in Scotland

Incumbents

• Monarch – Victoria
• Secretary for Scotland and Keeper of the Great Seal – Arthur Balfour until 11 March; then The Marquess of Lothian

  Law officers

• Lord Advocate – John Macdonald
• Solicitor General for Scotland – James Robertson

  Judiciary

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

  Events

• 26 April – the America's Cup challenging yacht Thistle, designed by George Lennox Watson, is launched at D. and W. Henderson and Company's yard at Partick.
• 28 May – Udston mining disaster in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, Scotland: 73 coal miners die in a firedamp explosion at Udston Colliery.
• 7 June – the first North Carr Lightship is moored on station.
• July – James Blyth operates the world's first working wind turbine at Marykirk.
• November – Park Deer Raid in the Outer Hebrides: a mass poaching expedition by dispossessed crofters turns into a riot.
• 17 December – Warrender Baths opened in the Marchmont district of Edinburgh.
• 25 December – Glenfiddich single malt Scotch whisky first distilled.
• December – The Scots Magazine resumes publication in Perth.
• The Old Blacksmith's Shop at Gretna Green is promoted as a visitor attraction.
• J. & P. Coats build their No. 1 cotton spinning mill at Ferguslie, Paisley.
• Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Society complex at Shieldhall, Glasgow, begins functioning as the world's first comprehensive industrial estate.
• William Ivison Macadam publishes "Notes on the Ancient Iron Industry of Scotland" in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

  Births

• 25 March – E.S. Russell, marine biologist
• 29 April – Stanley Cursiter, painter and curator
• 15 May – Edwin Muir, poet
• 9 July – Dòmhnall Ruadh Chorùna, poet
• 29 July – William Graham, Labour MP for Edinburgh Central
• 27 August – James Finlayson, comic film actor
• 16 August – Agnes Dollan, suffragette, political activist and leader of the Glasgow rent strikes
• Isabel Emslie Hutton, nurse in Serbia during World War I and psychiatrist

  Deaths

• 8 May – Thomas Stevenson, lighthouse designer and meteorologist
• 18 August – George Loch, Liberal Party Member of Parliament for Wick
• 18 September – Helen Acquroff, pianist, singer, poet and music teacher

  The arts

• 5 November – Hamish MacCunn's concert overture The Land of the Mountain and the Flood is first performed.
• sherlock holmes character was created