1891 in Scotland

Incumbents

• Monarch – Victoria
• Secretary for Scotland and Keeper of the Great Seal – The Marquess of Lothian

  Law officers

• Lord Advocate – James Robertson until August; vacant until October; then Sir Charles Pearson
• Solicitor General for Scotland – Sir Charles Pearson; then Andrew Murray

  Judiciary

• Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice General – Lord Glencorse until 20 August; then from 21 September Lord Robertson
• Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Kingsburgh

  Events

• January – attempts by Scottish railway companies to evict their striking workers from company housing are resisted by force.
• 30 April – An Comunn Gàidhealach is formally instituted.
• 21 May – Dumbarton and Rangers are declared joint champions after drawing a play-off game 2–2 at Cathkin Park, Glasgow at the end of the inaugural season of the Scottish Football League.
• September – Hugh Munro publishes the first table of mountains in Scotland over 3,000 feet, in the Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal; these become known as the Munros.
• 16 November–27 February 1892 – Buffalo Bill's Wild West show is resident at the former East End Exhibition Buildings in Glasgow.
• 18 December – the largest conventional civilian sailing ship ever built on the River Clyde, the 5-masted barque-rigged steel-hulled vessel :de:Maria Rickmers |Maria Rickmers, is launched by Russell & Co. at Port Glasgow for Rickmers Reederei of Bremerhaven.
• Hydroelectricity installation at Fort Augustus Abbey.
• The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers moves from Musselburgh to a new private course at Muirfield.

  Births

• 7 February – D. Alan Stevenson, lighthouse engineer and philatelist
• 2 April – Jack Buchanan, actor and producer
• 9 April – Agnes Mure Mackenzie, historian and writer
• 7 May – Harry McShane, socialist
• 8 November – Neil M. Gunn, novelist

  Deaths

• 12 March – John Dick Peddie, architect, businessman and Liberal Party MP for Kilmarnock Burghs
• 19 April – Hugh Smellie, steam locomotive engineer
• 11 May – Alexander Beith, Free Church minister
• 15 September – Sir John Steell, sculptor
• 22 November – John Gregorson Campbell, folklorist and Free Church minister
• 22 December – William Smith, architect

  The arts

• J. M. Barrie's novel The Little Minister is published.
• Màiri Mhòr nan Òran 's Gaelic Songs and Poems is published.
• The ensemble attached to the Glasgow Choral Union is formally recognised as the Scottish Orchestra, predecessor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.