1857 in Scotland

Incumbents

• Monarch – Victoria

  Law officers

• Lord Advocate – James Moncreiff
• Solicitor General for Scotland – Edward Maitland

  Judiciary

• Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice General – Lord Colonsay
• Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Glencorse

  Events

• 18 March – the Greenock Telegraph begins publication.
• 1 May – Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland inaugurated in Glasgow.
• 30 June – 9 July: trial of Madeleine Smith, charged with the poisoning of a former lover in Glasgow; a "not proven" verdict is returned.
• 9 November – The Western Bank of Scotland collapses.
• 16 November – the 93rd Regiment of Foot wins six Victoria Crosses in the storming of Sikandar Bagh during the second relief of Lucknow in the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
• Police Act 1857 makes the provision of a police force mandatory in the counties of Scotland.
• Lunga, Treshnish Isles, is depopulated.
• First whaler to be fitted with a steam engine, the Tay at Dundee.
• W. C. Stewart publishes The Practical Angler.

  Births

• 31 March – John James Burnet, architect
• 11 April – John Davidson, poet and playwright
• 15 May – Williamina Fleming, née Stevens, astronomer noted for her discovery of the Horsehead Nebula in 1888
• 15 June – William Fife, yacht designer
• 4 July – John Campbell, architect
• 11 July – David Prain, botanist
• 19 September – James Bridie, international rugby union player
• 2 October – John Macintyre, laryngologist and pioneer radiographer
• Date unknown – John Wilson, Lord Ashmore, Sheriff 1900–20, Senator of the College of Justice 1930–28

  Deaths

• 9 March – James Duff, 4th Earl Fife, general in Spanish service and landowner
• 19 March – William Henry Playfair, architect
• 15 April – William Skinner, bishop and Primus
• 26 August – Christian Isobel Johnstone, writer and editor
• 14 October – Alexander Laing, "the Brechin poet"
• 18 November – John Fleming, minister, naturalist, zoologist and geologist

  The arts

• Britannia Music Hall opened in Glasgow.