1831 in Scotland

Events from the year '''1831 in Scotland.'''

Incumbents

Law officers

Judiciary

Events

Spring – the 12th-century Lewis chessmen are found in a sand-bank on the Isle of Lewis.
19–21 March – one of Goldsworthy Gurney’s steam road coaches runs from Edinburgh to Glasgow.
May – Wellington Suspension Bridge over River Dee at Aberdeen opened to all traffic.
10 May – first steam locomotive to be built in Glasgow completed by Murdoch, Aitken & Co. for the Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway.
Mid-May – mineral traffic over Garnkirk and Glasgow Railway commences.
1 June
* A regular horse-drawn passenger service between Leaend at Airdrie and Glasgow over the Ballochney, Monkland and Kirkintilloch and Garnkirk and Glasgow Railways commences.
* One of Goldsworthy Gurney’s steam road coaches suffers a boiler explosion in Glasgow.
6 June – first iron steamboat to be launched on the River Clyde, Fairy Queen by John Neilson & Sons.
4 July – opening of first section of Edinburgh and Dalkeith Railway, from St Leonards to Craighall, including St Leonards Tunnel, Scotland's earliest tunnel on a public railway, and the early cast iron bridge at Braid Burn.
August – the Dugald Stewart Monument in Edinburgh, designed by W. H. Playfair, is completed.
1 August – the Roman Catholic St Thomas's Church, Keith, is opened for worship.
27 September – formal opening of Garnkirk and Glasgow Railway: locomotive St Rollox hauls Scotland’s first steam-worked passenger train from the Townhead terminus at Glasgow to Gartsherrie.
16 December – opening of first section of Dundee and Newtyle Railway, the first public railway in the north of Scotland.
23 December – the second cholera pandemic (1829–51) reaches Scotland.
The Ardrossan and Johnstone Railway opens as a waggonway from Johnstone to Kilwinning.
Dunnet Head lighthouse, designed by Robert Stevenson, is built.
North Church in Aberdeen, designed by John Smith, is opened.
The Burns Monument, Edinburgh, is designed by Thomas Hamilton.
William Wallace invents the eidograph.
Glenugie distillery is established as Invernettie at Peterhead by Donald McLeod; Talisker distillery is opened at Carbost, Talisker, Skye, by Hugh and Kenneth MacAskill.

Births

31 January – Alexander Balmain Bruce, theologian
February – George Stewart, recipient of the Victoria Cross
31 March – Archibald Scott Couper, organic chemist
2 April – David MacGibbon, architect
26 April – James Donaldson, classical scholar, educationalist and theological writer
28 April – Peter Tait, mathematical physicist
7 May – Richard Norman Shaw, architect
28 May – Richard B. Angus, financier
13 June – James Clerk Maxwell, physicist
24 June – Robert Wallace, writer and politician
3 July – Edmund Yates, writer
18 July – John Skelton, lawyer, author and administrator
17 August – John McLaren, politician and judge
13 September – Andrew Noble, physicist
12 October – Helen Acquroff, pianist, singer, poet and music teacher
17 October – Isa Craig, née Knox, poet
23 November – David MacKay, recipient of the Victoria Cross
25 December – John Bartholomew, cartographer

Deaths

14 January – Henry Mackenzie, novelist
4 February – William Ritchie, newspaper editor
14 February – Robert Brown, agriculturalist
22 March – William Symington, engineer and steamboat builder
May – James Campbell, army officer
1 July – Archibald Cochrane, 9th Earl of Dundonald, industrial chemist
16 August – Sir Hugh Innes, politician
17 August – Patrick Nasmyth, landscape painter
Joseph Lowe, economist

The arts

James Hogg publishes Songs, by the Ettrick Shepherd.
The Literary and Commercial Society of Glasgow is last known to be active.