1952 in Scotland

Incumbents

• Monarch – George VI, Elizabeth II
• Secretary of State for Scotland and Keeper of the Great Seal – James Stuart

  Law officers

• Lord Advocate – James Latham Clyde
• Solicitor General for Scotland – William Rankine Milligan

  Judiciary

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

  Events

• 6 February – Prince Charles becomes Duke of Rothesay on his mother's accession.
• 14 March – BBC TV Service Scotland launches, using the Kirk o'Shotts transmitting station.
• 27 May – first visit of the Queen to her home at Balmoral Castle as monarch; her first residence at Holyroodhouse Palace since her accession begins on 25 June.
• June
• * Reindeer reintroduced to the Cairngorms.
• * The last two miles of the Black Devon river disappear into old coal mine workings.
• 27 September – Commando Memorial near Spean Bridge unveiled.
• 29 September – John Cobb is killed on Loch Ness attempting to break the world water speed record in the jet speedboat Crusader.
• 29 November – "Pillar Box War": First GPO pillar box of the present reign to be erected in Scotland, on the Inch housing estate in Edinburgh, is attacked in protest at its bearing the Royal Cipher of Elizabeth II, the regnal number being considered historically incorrect in Scotland.
• 5 December – Ness, Lewis, selected for influenza vaccine trials.
• 10 December – Caithness Education Committee rejects a plan to issue pupils with a book entitled ABC Guide to the Coronation because it contains only English history.
• Castle of Mey in Caithness purchased for restoration by the newly-widowed Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother.
• Strathpeffer spa baths complex demolished.

  Births

• 12 February – Hugh Henry, Labour politician and Member of the Scottish Parliament for Paisley South from 1999
• 8 March – Bill Speirs, STUC General Secretary 1998-2006
• 2 May – Isla St Clair, born Isabella Margaret Dyce, singer, actress and television presenter
• 3 May – Allan Wells, Olympic champion athlete
• 10 May – Thomas Hamilton, spree killer, perpetrator of Dunblane school massacre
• 14 May – David Byrne, pop musician
• 29 May – Gerry Gow, footballer
• 12 June – Oliver Knussen, composer
• 26 June – Gordon McQueen, international footballer
• 6 August – David McLetchie, Conservative MSP
• 21 September – Jock Scot, born John Leslie, performance poet
• 12 November – Stuart Cosgrove, journalist, broadcaster and television executive
• C. J. Sansom, crime novelist

  Deaths

• 23 February – Sir James Lithgow, 1st Baronet, industrialist
• 31 May – Thomas Cook, Labour party politician and MP for Dundee since 1945
• 7 September – Marion Gilchrist, pioneering medical doctor
• 7 October – Sir Hugh S. Roberton, choirmaster
• William Roughead, lawyer and criminologist

  The arts

• 23 June – Salvador Dalí's new painting Christ of Saint John of the Cross goes on display at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow, an acquisition by its director, Tom Honeyman, which is controversial at this time.
• Poetry magazine Lines Review is founded by Callum Macdonald in Edinburgh.
• Queens Theatre, Glasgow, destroyed by fire.