1759 in Scotland

Incumbents

• Monarch – George II

  Law officers

• Lord Advocate – Robert Dundas the younger
• Solicitor General for Scotland – Andrew Pringle of Alemore; then Thomas Miller of Glenlee

  Judiciary

• Lord President of the Court of Session – Lord Glendoick
• Lord Justice General – Lord Ilay
• Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Tinwald

Events

• 13 September – Battle of the Plains of Abraham : British forces, including the 78th Fraser Highlanders, defeat those of the French to take Quebec City.
• September–October – Benjamin Franklin visits Scotland.
• 87th Regiment of Foot raised at Perth and sent to Germany.
• Dumfries House, designed by Robert Adam, completed.
• David Erskine establishes his own legal practice in Edinburgh, origins of the partnership Dundas & Wilson.
• The Carron Company establishes its ironworks at Falkirk.

  Births

• 25 January – Robert Burns, national poet of Scotland
• 5 March – John Jamieson, Secession minister and lexicographer
• 26 March – John Mayne, printer, journalist and poet
• 29 March – Alexander Chalmers, biographer and editor
• 4 May – Isabella Kelly, novelist and poet
• 7 May – John Beugo, engraver
• 22 June – John Gilchrist, Indologist and surgeon
• 22 September – William Playfair, political economist
• Aeneas Chisholm, Roman Catholic Vicar Apostolic of the Highland District
• Approximate date – Anne Rankine, innkeeper and possible muse of Robert Burns

  Deaths

• 20 January – James Fergusson, Lord Kilkerran, judge
• 11 March – John Forbes, British Army general
• 7 August – John Kennedy, 8th Earl of Cassilis

  Publications

• William Robertson – The History of Scotland During the Reigns of Queen Mary and of King James
• Adam Smith – The Theory of Moral Sentiments, embodying some of his Glasgow lectures