1852 in Scotland

Incumbents

• Monarch – Victoria

  Law officers

• Lord Advocate – James Moncreiff until February; then Adam Anderson until May; then John Inglis until December; then James Moncreiff
• Solicitor General for Scotland – George Deas; then John Inglis; then Charles Neaves

  Judiciary

• Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice General – Lord Boyle until 5 May; then from 14 May Lord Colonsay
• Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Glencorse

  Events

• 7–31 July – United Kingdom general election results in Conservative Party defeat in Scotland but victory across the UK as a whole.
• 1 October – Patent Law Amendment Act comes into effect, merging the English, Scottish and Irish patent systems.
• 28 December – Edinburgh-born George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, leading a Whig-Peelite coalition.
• Kelvingrove Park laid out as West End Park in Glasgow.
• New lighthouse built on North Ronaldsay.
• Two boatloads of emigrants leave the island of Raasay for Australia.
• Polled herd book established for Angus and Galloway cattle.
• Kirkcaldy High School established as Kirkcaldy Burgh School.
• The School of Arts of Edinburgh, predecessor of Heriot-Watt University, changes its name to the Watt Institution and School of Arts.
• George Hay Forbes founds Pitsligo Press.

  Births

• 24 May – R. B. Cunninghame Graham, radical socialist politician and writer
• 2 September - Durward Lely, opera singer and actor,
• 11 September – James Mackay, 1st Earl of Inchcape, businessman and colonial administrator in India
• 2 October – William Ramsay, chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1904
• John Kerr, businessman and politician
• Approximate date – Murdo Stewart MacDonald, merchant mariner

  Deaths

• 5 May – William Henry Murray, actor-manager
• 2 July – Thomas Thomson, chemist
• 22 July – John Smith, architect
• 25 July – Thomas Grainger, civil engineer and surveyor
• 4 September – William MacGillivray, naturalist