1836 in Scotland

Incumbents

• Monarch – William IV

  Law officers

• Lord Advocate – John Murray
• Solicitor General for Scotland – John Cunninghame

  Judiciary

• Lord President of the Court of Session – Lord Granton
• Lord Justice General – The Duke of Montrose until 30 December
• Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Boyle

  Events

• 17 May – Arbroath and Forfar Railway authorised.
• 19 May – Dundee and Arbroath Railway authorised.
• June – 17 miniature coffins of unknown provenance are found in a cave on Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh.
• 1 July – North of Scotland Bank established in Aberdeen by Alexander Anderson and others.
• 16 July – the brig Mariner leaves Loch Eriboll on the north coast for Cape Breton Island and Quebec in British North America with 154 emigrants, mostly from the nearby Reay district.
• 30 July – Savings Bank of Glasgow established.
• 7 August – St Andrew's Cathedral, Dundee opened.
• 13 August – Edinburgh, Leith and Newhaven Railway authorised.
• Botanical Society of Scotland established as the Botanical Society of Edinburgh.
• Glasgow and Ship Bank established by merger of the Glasgow Banking Company and the Ship Bank.
• Robert Napier launches the paddle sloop Berenice for the East India Company, the first steam warship built in Scotland, the hull being subscontracted to John Wood of Port Glasgow.
• Construction of Granton harbour begun
• Construction of modern Inverness Castle.
• Former windmill at Maxwelltown opens as converted into an astronomical observatory and the world's oldest working camera obscura, basis of the modern-day Dumfries Museum.
• Wellington School, Ayr, established for "young ladies of quality" by Mrs Gross.
• John MacCulloch's geological map of Scotland is published posthumously.

  Births

• 13 January – Alexander Whyte, minister of the Free Church of Scotland and theologian
• 12 February – John Gerard Anderson, educationalist in Queensland
• 21 February – Alexander Dickson, botanist
• 18 March – James Laidlaw Maxwell, Presbyterian missionary in Taiwan
• 31 March – William Dingwall Fordyce, Liberal politician
• 5 April – John Scott, botanist
• 24 May – William Mortimer Clark, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario
• 9 June – Thomas McCall Anderson, physician
• 26 June – Aeneas Chisholm, Roman Catholic priest
• 3 August – Colin Scott-Moncrieff, irrigation engineer in India and Egypt and Under-Secretary for Scotland
• 11 August – Hugh Gilzean-Reid, journalist and Liberal politician
• 7 September – Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
• 23 September – Samuel Chisholm, Liberal politician and Lord Provost of Glasgow
• 28 October – James Edward Tierney Aitchison, surgeon and botanist
• 16 November – David Binning Monro, classical scholar
• 4 December – Duncan MacGregor Crerar, poet
• John Gregorson Campbell, minister of the church and folklorist
• William Baxter Collier Fyfe, genre and portrait painter
• Jessie Seymour Irvine, psalmist
• William Angus Knight, philosopher and literary scholar
• John Rhind, architect
• Andrew Strath, golfer

  Deaths

• 15 February – John Gillies, Historiographer Royal for Scotland
• 24 February – Henry Liston, minister of the church and inventor
• 4 April – John Grieve, poet
• 23 June – James Mill, historian, economist, political theorist and philosopher
• August – Sir John Hope, British Army officer
• 21 October – Donald Gregory, antiquarian
• 26 November – John Loudon McAdam, civil engineer and road-builder
• 30 December – James Graham, 3rd Duke of Montrose, nobleman, politician and Lord Justice General
• John Heaviside Clark, artist

  The arts

• Painter David Wilkie is granted a knighthood.
• 5 March – George Brodie appointed Historiographer Royal