1947 in Scotland

Incumbents

• Monarch – George VI
• Secretary of State for Scotland and Keeper of the Great Seal – Joseph Westwood until 7 October; then Arthur Woodburn

  Law officers

• Lord Advocate – George Reid Thomson until 13 October; then John Thomas Wheatley
• Solicitor General for Scotland – Daniel Blades until March; then John Thomas Wheatley until October; then Douglas Johnston

  Judiciary

• Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice General – Lord Normand until 6 January; then Lord Cooper
• Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Cooper, then Lord Thomson
• Chairman of the Scottish Land Court – Lord Gibson

  Events

• 10 January – Burngrange mining disaster: An explosion in an oil shale mine at West Calder kills 15.
• 29 March – Butlin's Ayr holiday camp opened to the public.
• 6 May – East Kilbride designated as the first New Town in Scotland under powers of the New Towns Act 1946.
• 28 May – Prohibition ends in Wick, Caithness; it also ends this year in Lerwick.
• 16 June – makes her maiden voyage on the Firth of Clyde.
• 9 July – Glasgow Zoo opens at Calderpark, Baillieston.
• 18 July – the first official night horse racing meeting in Britain is held at Hamilton Park Racecourse.
• 27–28 July – English endurance swimmer Tom Blower becomes the first person to swim the North Channel, from Donaghadee in Northern Ireland to Portpatrick.
• 31 July – the Local Government Act 1947 receives the Royal Assent.
• 1 October – local government is reorganised in line with the Local Government Act 1947.
• 25 October – Walter Donaldson becomes the first Scottish player to win the World Snooker Championship.
• 30 October – is launched at John Brown & Company's shipyard on Clydebank as a cruise ship for the Cunard Line.
• 5 November – the Scottish Aviation Pioneer STOL aircraft, built at Prestwick, first flies.
• Archaeological excavations at Cairnpapple Hill in West Lothian are begun by Stuart Piggott.
• The Golden Wonder brand of potato crisp is originated by bakery owner William Alexander of Stockbridge, Edinburgh.
• Robert Wiseman Dairies founded by Robert Wiseman with a horse and cart used for doorstep deliveries in East Kilbride.
• Luing cattle first bred on the island of Luing by the Cadzow brothers.

  Births

• 4 February – John Campbell Brown, astronomer
• 11 February – Derek Shulman, progressive rock musician
• 11 March – David Stewart, goalkeeper
• 24 March – Archie Gemmill, footballer
• April – Alastair Hay, toxicologist
• 16 April – Gerry Rafferty, singer-songwriter
• 21 April – Robert Black, serial killer
• 8 May – John Reid, Labour Party MP, minister and Home Secretary
• 31 May – Junior Campbell, born William Campbell Jr, pop musician
• 11 July – Drummond Bone, academic and Byron scholar
• 10 August – Ian Anderson, rock musician
• 27 September – Barbara Dickson, singer
• 20 November – Aneka, pop and folk singer
• 26 December – Liz Lochhead, poet and dramatist
• John Muir, footballer

  Deaths

• 14 March – Archibald Main, ecclesiastical historian
• 25 April – John Crichton-Stuart, 4th Marquess of Bute, architectural conservationist
• 28 November – James Miller, architect and artist
• 1 December – John Fraser, surgeon and academic
• 14 December – Will Fyffe, music hall entertainer

  The arts

• 30 January – Ena Lamont Stewart's domestic drama Men Should Weep, written in Glasgow patter, is premiered by the Glasgow Unity Theatre at the Athenaeum Theatre.
• 13 March – the Lerner and Loewe musical Brigadoon opens on Broadway.
• 24 August – first Edinburgh Festival of the Arts opens.
• 31 August – the first Edinburgh International Film Festival opens at the Playhouse Cinema, presented by the Edinburgh Film Guild as part of the Edinburgh Festival of the Arts. Originally specialising in documentaries, it will become the world's oldest continuously running film festival.
• Compton Mackenzie's comic novel Whisky Galore is published.
• Naomi Mitchison's historical novel The Bull Calves is published.
• Sydney Goodsir Smith's comic novel Carotid Cornucopius: caird of the Cannon Gait and voyeur of the Outlook Touer. His splores, cantraips, wisdoms, houghmagandies, peribibulatiouns and all kinna abstrapulous junketings and ongoings abowt the high toun of Edenberg, capitule of boney Sotland is published in Glasgow.
• The Makar's Club in Edinburgh issues a Scots Style Sheet setting out a consensus for the spelling of Modern Scots.