1942 in Scotland

Incumbents

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

  Law officers

• Lord Advocate – James Reid
• Solicitor General for Scotland – Sir David King Murray

  Judiciary

• Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice General – Lord Normand
• Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Cooper
• Chairman of the Scottish Land Court – Lord Gibson

  Events

• 19 January – a Catalina flying boat crashes on the hill above Burravoe on Yell, Shetland, killing seven of her ten passengers.
• April – Allied commandos training with live ammunition accidentally cause a major pine forest fire at Loch Arkaig.
• 28 April – Strathpeffer spa hospital is destroyed by fire.
• 15 May – arrives at Greenock with nearly 10,000 U.S. troops aboard.
• July – military scientists begin testing of anthrax as a biological warfare agent on Gruinard Island.
• 25 August – Dunbeath air crash: Prince George, Duke of Kent, brother of George VI, is among 14 killed in a military air crash near Caithness.
• South Ford Bridge completed, connecting Benbecula to South Uist.
• Monach Islands deserted. Lighthouse on Shillay unlit.

  Births

• 5 January – Henry John Burnett, murderer, last man hanged in Scotland
• 24 January – Sheila Mullen, painter
• 2 February – Roger Hynd, footballer
• 21 February – Magnus Linklater, journalist
• 22 February – John Kerr, Baron Kerr of Kinlochard, diplomat
• 24 February – Stuart Henry, disc jockey
• 27 February – Aimi MacDonald, actress and dancer
• 12 April – Bill Bryden, theatre director
• 28 April – Geoffrey Hosking, historian
• 8 May – Norman Lamont, Conservative politician, Chancellor of the Exchequer
• 14 May – Prentis Hancock, actor
• 24 May – Fraser Stoddart, Scottish-born scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
• 7 June – Aonghas MacNeacail, Gaelic poet
• 18 June – John Bellany, painter
• 12 July – Tam White, actor and musician
• 8 August – Dennis Canavan, politician
• 12 August – Iain Blair, actor and author
• 23 October – Douglas Dunn, poet and academic
• 16 November – Willie Carson, jockey
• 24 November – Billy Connolly, comedian
• 9 December – Billy Bremner, international footballer
• 10 December – Ann Gloag, born Ann Souter, entrepreneur
• 12 December – Morag Hood, actress
• 13 December – Hamish Wilson, actor
• 22 December - Irvine Laidlaw, Baron Laidlaw, businessman
• 27 December – Mike Heron, psychedelic rock musician
• Albert Watson, photographer

  Deaths

• 2 March - Charles Usher, ophthalmologist from whom Usher Syndrome is named
• 3 March - George Adam Smith, theologian
• 10 August – Bob Kelso, footballer
• 4 December – Hugh Malcolm, Royal Air Force officer, posthumous recipient of the Victoria Cross
• Andrew Allan, lithographic artist

  The arts

• Ena Lamont Stewart's first play, the one-act Distinguished Company, is presented by the MSU Repertory Theatre in Rutherglen.