1916 in Scotland

Incumbents

• Monarch – George V
• Secretary for Scotland and Keeper of the Great Seal – Thomas McKinnon Wood until 9 July; Harold Tennant until 5 December; then Robert Munro

  Law officers

• Lord Advocate – Robert Munro; then James Avon Clyde
• Solicitor General for Scotland – Thomas Brash Morison

  Judiciary

• Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice General – Lord Strathclyde
• Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Dickson
• Chairman of the Scottish Land Court – Lord Kennedy

  Events

• 6 January – sinks off Cape Wrath, having struck a mine laid by ; all but one of the crew survive.
• 15 February – 27-year-old Edinburgh-born Black Watch private John Docherty is shot at dawn at Mazingarbe abattoir on the Western Front for desertion, the first Kitchener's Army volunteer executed.
• 2-3 April – World War I: Imperial German Navy Zeppelins bomb Leith and Edinburgh, killing 13.
• 30 May – World War I: Ships of the Royal Navy's Grand Fleet put out from Scapa Flow to engage with the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet; the Battle of Jutland is joined next day.
• 5 June – HMS Hampshire sinks off Orkney, probably having struck a German mine, with the loss of 650 lives – including Lord Kitchener and his staff – and only 13 survivors.
• 25 July – North of Scotland Special Military Area declared, restricting access by non-residents to everywhere north of the Great Glen.
• c.23 August–25 October – Dyce Work Camp for conscientious objectors working in the granite quarries operates.
• 31 December – Douglas Haig is promoted to Field marshal.
• The white-tailed sea eagle last breeds in the UK, on Skye.

  Births

• 11 May – Edward Boyd, screenwriter
• 20 May – John McIntyre, theologian and Church of Scotland minister
• 16 June – John Young, actor
• 10 July – Harry Gourlay, Labour MP from 1959
• 11 August – Benny Lee, comedy actor and singer
• 18 October – Anthony Dawson, actor
• 22 October – Peter Brodie, Church of Scotland minister, Moderator of the General Assembly
• 28 October – Jessie Kesson, born Jessie Grant McDonald, writer and radio producer
• 21 November – David Syme Russell, theologian and author
• 7 November – Ian Niall, born John McNeillie, author
• 18 December – Douglas Fraser, union leader
• Angus McPhee, outsider artist

  Deaths

• 21 January – David Finlay, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross; killed in action in Mesopotamia
• 6 March – Sir James Key Caird, jute manufacturer and benefactor
• 6 April – Andrew Ross, Scotland rugby union international and merchant seaman; killed in action in France
• 3 May – William Hardie, classical scholar, Professor of Humanity at Edinburgh University from 1895
• 27 May – William Leiper, architect
• 1 July – James Youll Turnbull, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross; killed in action in France
• 23 July – William Ramsay, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1904
• 3 October – James Burgess, archaeologist active in India
• 26 November – Alexander Robertson MacEwen, writer, minister, professor and Moderator of the United Free Church of Scotland

  The arts

• July–October – during the Battle of the Somme on the Western Front, Cameron Highlander Dòmhnall Ruadh Chorùna composes the Gaelic love song An Eala Bhàn in the oral literature tradition.
• c. November – the Incorporation of Architects in Scotland is founded in Edinburgh.
• Joseph Lee's Ballads of Battle is published.