1831 in Scotland

Incumbents

• Monarch – William IV

  Law officers

• Lord Advocate – Francis Jeffrey
• Solicitor General for Scotland – Henry Cockburn

  Judiciary

• Lord President of the Court of Session – Lord Granton
• Lord Justice General – The Duke of Montrose
• Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Boyle

  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 reaches Scotland.
• The Ardrossan and Johnstone Railway opens as a waggonway from Johnstone to Kilwinning.
• Dunnet Head lighthouse, designed by Robert Stevenson, is built.
• :File:Aberdeen Arts Centre - geograph.org.uk - 851159.jpg|North Church in Aberdeen, designed by John Smith, is opened.
• The :File:Burns Monument, Edinburgh by Thomas Hamilton.jpg|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 built 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
• 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.