1905 in Scotland

Incumbents

• Monarch – Edward VII
• Secretary for Scotland and Keeper of the Great Seal – Andrew Murray until 2 February; then The Marquess of Linlithgow until 4 December; then John Sinclair

  Law officers

• Lord Advocate – Charles Dickson until December; then Thomas Shaw
• Solicitor General for Scotland – David Dundas; then Edward Theodore Salvesen; then James Avon Clyde; then Alexander Ure

  Judiciary

• Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice General – Lord Blair Balfour until 22 January; then from 4 February Lord Dunedin
• Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Kingsburgh

  Events

• January – Strathaven Academy opens.
• 28 September – Talla Reservoir officially opened to serve the Edinburgh district after 10 years of construction.
• 31 October – Perth Corporation Tramways commence electric operation.
• 18 November – First rugby match between New Zealand and Scotland, played at Murrayfield.
• 19 November – 39 men are killed in a fire at a model lodging house in Watson Street, Glasgow.
• St Paul's Cathedral, Dundee, raised to cathedral status in the Episcopal Church.
• David Couper Thomson sets up the Dundee publisher D. C. Thomson & Co.
• Scottish Motor Traction is set up in Edinburgh as a motor bus operator.
• Victoria Bridge, Mar Lodge Estate, erected.
• Approximate date – the earliest Rolls-Royce 10 hp car to survive into the 21st century is acquired by Kenneth Gillies of Tain; it remains in Scotland until the time of World War I.

  Births

• 6 April – Johnny Ramensky, career criminal, employed as a commando for his safe-cracking abilities
• 19 April – Jim Mollison, aviator
• 12 May – Alex Jackson, international footballer
• 12 July – John Maxwell, landscape painter
• 19 July – Robert Hurd, influential conservation architect
• 20 August – Duncan Macrae, actor
• 6 September – William McEwan Younger, brewer and Unionist politician
• 4 October – Leslie Mitchell, announcer
• 9 December – Janet Adam Smith, writer and mountaineer
• Norman Cameron, poet
• Fred Hartley, light music composer and conductor

  Deaths

• 21 January – Robert Brough, painter, died in a railway disaster
• 5 August – Alexander Asher, Liberal politician and Solicitor General for Scotland
• 16 August – Jamie Anderson, golfer
• 22 August – David Binning Monro, Homeric scholar
• 18 September – George MacDonald, author, poet and Christian minister
• 8 October – Allan MacDonald, Roman Catholic priest, poet, folklore collector and activist
• 27 October – Ralph Copeland, Astronomer Royal for Scotland
• 7 November – Lady Florence Caroline Dixie, traveller, war correspondent, writer and feminist
• 12 December – William Sharp, poet and literary biographer

  The arts

• 16 January – Neil Munro begins publishing his Vital Spark stories in the Glasgow Evening News.
• Harry Lauder writes the popular song "I Love a Lassie".