1843 in Scotland

Incumbents

Law officers

• Lord Advocate – Duncan McNeill
• Solicitor General for Scotland – Adam Anderson

Judiciary

• Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice General – Lord Boyle
• Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Hope

Events

• 18 May – the Disruption of the Church of Scotland takes place. Construction of the Triple Kirks in Aberdeen begins.
• 3 June – first burial in Warriston Cemetery, Edinburgh.
• 29 June – Robert Napier launches his first iron ship, the paddle steamer Vanguard, from his new yard at Govan on the River Clyde.
• 1 July – Union Bank of Scotland opens in Glasgow.
• 13 August – Sir William Dunbar, priest of St. Paul's Chapel, Aberdeen, is excommunicated from the Scottish Episcopal Church for refusing to administer or receive the sacrament in accordance with the church's ritual.
• Dingwall becomes the county town of Ross and Cromarty.
• The last laird of Raasay, John Macleod, emigrates to Tasmania having sold the Scottish island to George Rainy to help clear his debts.
• The Ordnance Survey commences its first published mapping of Scotland with a survey of Wigtownshire.
• The Glenmorangie distillery is established in Tain by William Matheson.
• Glenburn Hydro is opened in Rothesay, Bute, the first hydropathic establishment in Scotland.
• First paddle steamer on Loch Katrine, Gypsy.
• Little Ross lighthouse completed.
• Angus MacKay becomes first Piper to the Sovereign.
• Marion Kirkland Reid's feminist tract A Plea for Woman is published in Edinburgh.

Births

• 12 June – David Gill, astronomer known for measuring astronomical distances, for astrophotography, and for geodesy
• 5 August – James Scott Skinner, dancing master, fiddler and composer
• 21 August – Thomas Hill Jamieson, librarian

Deaths

• 25 July – Charles Macintosh, chemist and inventor of waterproof fabrics after whom the Mackintosh raincoat is named
• 5 December – David Hamilton, architect

The arts

• Hill & Adamson form Scotland's first photographic studio, on Calton Hill in Edinburgh.