1938 in Scotland

Incumbents

• Monarch – George VI
• Secretary of State for Scotland and Keeper of the Great Seal – Walter Elliot until 16 May; then John Colville

  Law officers

• Lord Advocate – Thomas Mackay Cooper
• Solicitor General for Scotland – James Reid

  Judiciary

• Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice General – Lord Normand
• Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Aitchison
• Chairman of the Scottish Land Court – Lord MacGregor Mitchell, then Lord Murray

  Events

• 27 April – Second Division team East Fife F.C. uniquely win the Scottish Cup in Association football.
• 3 May – Empire Exhibition opens in Glasgow.
• 30 July – The Beano comic, published by D. C. Thomson & Co. of Dundee, goes on sale across the U.K.
• 27 September – is launched at Clydebank; she is the largest ship in the world at this time.
• Iona Community established by Rev. George MacLeod in Glasgow.
• English landowner David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale, buys the island of Inch Kenneth.
• The Hermitage of Braid estate, adjacent to Blackford Hill, is gifted to the city of Edinburgh for recreational purposes by John McDougal.
• The Neolithic settlement of Rinyo on Rousay in Orkney is excavated by V. Gordon Childe.
• Broughton Place at Broughton in the Borders is built in the style of a traditional tower house by Basil Spence incorporating decorative reliefs by Hew Lorimer.
• Turner & Newall establish an asbestos cement plant at Dalmuir.
• Agnes Mure Mackenzie publishes The Foundations of Scotland, the first of a 6-volume history.

  Births

• 1 January - Neil Connery, actor, younger brother of Sean Connery
• 2 January – Ian Brady, born Ian Duncan Stewart, serial killer
• 16 February – Willie Hamilton, footballer
• 7 March – Alan Cousin, footballer
• 31 March
• * Ian Gray, comics scriptwriter
• * David Steel, Liberal and Liberal Democrat leader and 1st Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament
• 16 April – Gordon Wilson, Scottish National Party leader
• 5 June – Moira Anderson, singer
• 18 June - Michael Sheard, character actor
• 27 June – David Hope, judge
• 28 July - Ian McCaskill, weatherman
• 13 September – John Smith, Labour Party leader
• 14 September - Nicol Williamson, actor
• 20 October – Iain Macmillan, photographer
• 22 October – Alan Gilzean, footballer
• 28 November – Frank Haffey, goalkeeper
• John Paisley, actor, working in China
• Roland Poska, graphic artist

  Deaths

• 31 January – Sir James Crichton-Browne, psychiatrist
• 9 April – Moses McNeil, footballer, a founder of Rangers F.C.
• 11 April – David Alan Stevenson, lighthouse designer
• 25 April – Robert MacGregor Mitchell, Lord MacGregor Mitchell, Chairman of the Scottish Land Court 1934–38
• 29 April – James Pittendrigh Macgillivray, sculptor and poet
• 2 July – John James Burnet, architect
• 29 August – John Macdonald, sportsman and physician

  The arts

• Hugh S. Roberton writes the "Mingulay Boat Song".