1939 in Scotland

Incumbents

• Monarch – George VI
• Secretary of State for Scotland and Keeper of the Great Seal – 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 Murray

  Events

• 2 January – all-time highest attendance for a U.K. Association football league game as 118,730 people watch Rangers beat Celtic in an "Old Firm derby" played at Ibrox Park in Glasgow.
• April – RAF Lossiemouth becomes operational.
• 3 September – World War II:
• * Declaration of war by the United Kingdom on Nazi Germany.
• * Clyde-built liner becomes the first civilian casualty of the war when she is torpedoed and sunk by in the vicinity of Rockall. Of the 1,418 aboard, 98 passengers and 19 crew are killed; the first survivors are brought in to Greenock. On 7 September, survivors are visited by John F. Kennedy.
• 4 September
• * Civil servants of the Scottish Office begin to occupy its first office in Scotland, St Andrew's House on Calton Hill in Edinburgh.
• * Several Citizens Advice Bureaux are founded in the United Kingdom to provide wartime information to the public, including Citizens Advice Edinburgh in Scotland.
• 30 September – Jackie Paterson wins the British flyweight boxing title in an open-air bout in Glasgow.
• 14 October – World War II: HMS Royal Oak sunk by a German U-boat in Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands with the loss of 833 crew.
• 16 October – World War II: first enemy aircraft shot down by RAF Fighter Command, a Junkers Ju 88 brought down into the sea by Spitfires following an attack on Rosyth Naval Dockyard.
• 17 October – World War II: first bomb lands in the U.K., at Hoy in the Orkney Islands.
• 28 October
• * A dust explosion in the colliery at Valleyfield, Fife, kills 35.
• * World War II: First enemy aircraft forced down on British soil by RAF Fighter Command, a Heinkel He 111 brought down near Humbie by a Spitfire flown by Archie McKellar following reconnaissance of the Firth of Clyde.
• 30 October – World War II: British battleship is unsuccessfully attacked by under the command of captain Wilhelm Zahn off Orkney and is hit by three torpedoes, none of which explode; Winston Churchill, Admiral of the Fleet Dudley Pound and Admiral Charles Forbes are on board.
• 1 December – World War II: torpedoes Finnish vessel Mercator off Peterhead and the Norwegian Arcturus in the Firth of Forth.
• 2 December – World War II: Swedish cargo ship Rudolf hits a mine and sinks off St Abb's Head.
• 4 December – World War II: battleship is badly damaged by a mine at the entrance to Loch Ewe.
• 12 December – escorting destroyer sinks after a collision with battleship off the Mull of Kintyre in heavy fog with the loss of 124 men.
• 17 December – Danish cargo ship Bogo sinks off Fife Ness.
• 21 December – boom defence vessel Bayonet explodes at Leith.
• is established as a Royal Navy shore establishment for Western Approaches Command at St Enoch's Hotel, Glasgow.
• Strathcarron Reservoir on the River Carron is completed.

  Births

• 16 April – Donald MacCormick, broadcast journalist
• 2 May – Mairi Hedderwick, illustrator
• 4 June – George Reid, politician, Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament 2003-2007
• 8 June – Gordon Reid, actor
• 9 June - Eric Fernie, historian
• 11 June – Jackie Stewart, racing driver
• July – Wes Magee, poet and children's author
• 23 July – Donald Macgregor, marathon runner
• 29 September – Jim Baxter, international footballer
• 19 October – David Clark, Labour politician
• 31 October – Trish Godman, Labour politician
• 18 November – Ian McCulloch, actor
• Don Cameron, balloonist
• Dugald Cameron, industrial designer
• Duncan Macmillan, art historian
• The Mulgray Twins, Helen and Morna Mulgray, crime novelists

  Deaths

• 18 April – Ishbel Hamilton-Gordon, Marchioness of Aberdeen and Temair, patron and promoter of women's interests
• 20 April – William Mitchell Ramsay, archaeologist and New Testament scholar
• 13 September – Henry Halcro Johnston, botanist, physician, rugby union international and Deputy Lieutenant for Orkney
• 21 September – George Washington Browne, architect
• Robert Bryden, artist and sculptor

  The arts

• 18 May – Cosmo Cinema opens in Glasgow as an art film theatre.
• Erik Chisholm's sonata An Riobhan Dearg is composed.
• Ian Niall's novel Wigtown Ploughman: Part of His Life is published under the author's real name, John McNeillie.