1939 in Scotland

Events from the year 1939 in Scotland.

Incumbents

Secretary of State for Scotland and Keeper of the Great Seal – John Colville

Law officers

Judiciary

Events

2 January – all-time highest attendance for a U.K. Association football league game as 118,730 people watch Rangers beat Celtic in an "Old Firm derby" played at Ibrox Park in Glasgow.
1 May – RAF Lossiemouth formally opens.
3 September – World War II:
* Declaration of war by the United Kingdom on Nazi Germany.
* Clyde-built liner becomes the first civilian casualty of the war when she is torpedoed and sunk by in the vicinity of Rockall. Of the 1,418 aboard, 98 passengers and 19 crew are killed; the first survivors are brought in to Greenock. On 7 September, survivors are visited by John F. Kennedy, son of the US Ambassador and future 35th President of the United States.
4 September
* Civil servants of the Scottish Office begin to occupy its first office in Scotland, St Andrew's House on Calton Hill in Edinburgh.
* Several Citizens Advice Bureaux are founded in the United Kingdom to provide wartime information to the public, including Citizens Advice Edinburgh in Scotland.
30 September – Jackie Paterson wins the British flyweight boxing title in an open-air bout in Glasgow.
14 October – World War II: HMS Royal Oak sunk by a German U-boat in Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands with the loss of 833 crew.
16 October – World War II: first enemy aircraft shot down by RAF Fighter Command, a Junkers Ju 88 brought down into the sea by Spitfires following an attack on Rosyth Naval Dockyard.
17 October – World War II: first bomb lands in the U.K., at Hoy in the Orkney Islands.
28 October
* A dust explosion in the colliery at Valleyfield, Fife, kills 35 people.
* World War II: First enemy aircraft forced down on British soil by RAF Fighter Command, a Heinkel He 111 brought down near Humbie by a Spitfire flown by Archie McKellar following reconnaissance of the Firth of Clyde.
30 October – World War II: British battleship is unsuccessfully attacked by under the command of captain Wilhelm Zahn off Orkney and is hit by three torpedoes, none of which explode; Winston Churchill, Admiral of the Fleet Dudley Pound and Admiral Charles Forbes are on board.
1 December – World War II: torpedoes Finnish vessel Mercator off Peterhead and the Norwegian Arcturus in the Firth of Forth.
2 December – World War II: Swedish cargo ship Rudolf hits a mine and sinks off St Abb's Head.
4 December – World War II: battleship is badly damaged by a mine at the entrance to Loch Ewe.
12 December – escorting destroyer sinks after a collision with battleship off the Mull of Kintyre in heavy fog with the loss of 124 men.
17 December – Danish cargo ship Bogo sinks off Fife Ness.
21 December – boom defence vessel Bayonet explodes at Leith.
is established as a Royal Navy shore establishment for Western Approaches Command at St Enoch's Hotel, Glasgow.
Strathcarron Reservoir on the River Carron is completed.

Births

7 March – Duncan Macmillan, art historian
16 April – Donald MacCormick, broadcast journalist
2 May – Mairi Hedderwick, illustrator
4 June – George Reid, politician, Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament 2003-2007
8 June – Gordon Reid, actor
9 June – Eric Fernie, art historian
11 June – Jackie Stewart, racing driver
16 July – Don Cameron, balloonist
July – Wes Magee, poet and children's author
23 July – Donald Macgregor, marathon runner
29 September – Jim Baxter, international footballer
19 October – David Clark, Labour politician
31 October – Trish Godman, Labour politician
18 November – Ian McCulloch, actor
Dugald Cameron, industrial designer
The Mulgray Twins, Helen and Morna Mulgray, crime novelists

Deaths

18 April – Ishbel Hamilton-Gordon, Marchioness of Aberdeen and Temair, patron and promoter of women's interests
20 April – William Mitchell Ramsay, archaeologist and New Testament scholar
13 September – Henry Halcro Johnston, botanist, physician, rugby union international and Deputy Lieutenant for Orkney
21 September – George Washington Browne, architect
Robert Bryden, artist and sculptor

The arts

2 May – Molly Urquhart's repertory theatre company opens its first production, in Rutherglen.
18 May – Cosmo Cinema opens in Glasgow as an art film theatre.
Erik Chisholm's sonata An Riobhan Dearg is composed.
Ian Niall's novel Wigtown Ploughman: Part of His Life is published under the author's real name, John McNeillie.