1828 in Scotland

Incumbents

• Monarch – George IV

  Law officers

• Lord Advocate – Sir William Rae, Bt
• Solicitor General for Scotland – John Hope

  Judiciary

• Lord President of the Court of Session – Lord Granton
• Lord Justice General – The Duke of Montrose
• Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Boyle

  Events

• 7 January – Rev. Henry Duncan describes his discovery of the fossil footmarks of quadrupeds in Permian red sandstone at Cornockle Muir, near Lochmaben in Dumfriesshire, the first scientific report of a fossil track, in a paper read to the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
• 9 March – an English gang make off with £28,350 after holding up the Glasgow branch of the Greenock Bank.
• April – David Stow opens his Drygate model school in Glasgow.
• 15 June – 28 people are killed when the north gallery of the Old Kirk, Kirkcaldy, collapses during a sermon by popular preacher Edward Irving.
• 8 August – the Ballochney Railway is completed throughout.
• 10 September – first public demonstration of Rev. Patrick Bell's reaping machine on his family's farm.
• 17–24 December – Burke and Hare murders trial in Edinburgh: William Burke is sentenced to hang for his part in the murder of 17 victims to provide bodies for dissection by anatomist Robert Knox; his accomplice William Hare is released having turned King's evidence.
• Inhabitants of the island of Muck emigrate to Nova Scotia.
• St Stephen's Church, Edinburgh, is completed to the design of William Henry Playfair.
• Caird & Company established by John Caird in Greenock as marine engineers.
• James Beaumont Neilson patents the hot blast process for ironmaking.
• A steam road coach constructed by James and George Naysmith runs between Leith and Queensferry.
• Glasgow Co-operative Society established.

  Births

• 4 April – Mrs. Oliphant, born Margaret Wilson, novelist and historical writer
• 16 August – John Waddell, railway contractor
• 30 September – John Simpson Knox, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross
• 5 October – Alexander Gunn, grocery wholesaler
• 1 November – Balfour Stewart, physicist
• 13 December – Alexander Shand, 1st Baron Shand, judge
• Alexander Crum, textile printer and Liberal politician
• Robert Doull, merchant and politician
• John Small, librarian and scholar

  Deaths

• 29 February – John Ainslie, cartographer
• 11 June – Dugald Stewart, Enlightenment philosopher
• 5 July – Andrew Duncan, physician
• 20 December – Archibald Fletcher, reforming lawyer
• Robert Blair, astronomer
• William Drummond of Logiealmond, diplomat and philosopher

  The arts

• The Maitland Club is founded in Glasgow to edit and publish early Scottish texts.
• The Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell is published.
• Sir Walter Scott's novel The Fair Maid of Perth is published.