1755 in Scotland explained

Events from the year 1755 in Scotland.

Incumbents

Law officers

• Lord Advocate – Robert Dundas the younger
• Solicitor General for Scotland – Patrick Haldane of Gleneagles, jointly with Alexander Hume; then Andrew Pringle of Alemore

Judiciary

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

Events

• June – Joseph Black's discovery of carbon dioxide and magnesium is communicated in a paper to the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh.^[1]
• 1 November – Lisbon earthquake felt in Scotland.
• Demographic history of Scotland: First reliable national census conducted by Rev. Alexander Webster, showing the country's population as 1,265,380. Four towns have populations of over 10,000, with Edinburgh the largest with 57,000 inhabitants.^[2]
• Construction of St Ninian's Church, Tynet, the country's oldest surviving post-Reformation Roman Catholic clandestine church.^[3]
• Ironworks established at Furnace, Argyll.
• Work on William Roy's survey of Scotland concludes.^[4]

Births

• 18 January – James Hamilton, 7th Duke of Hamilton (died 1769)
• 21 February – Anne Grant, poet (died 1838)
• 25 June – Archibald Gracie merchant and shipowner (died 1829 in the United States)
• August 5 – James Playfair, Scottish Neoclassical architect (died 1794)
• 17 August – William Paterson, soldier, colonial governor in Australia, explorer and botanist (died 1810 at sea)
• 4 September – Mary FitzMaurice, 4th Countess of Orkney, née O'Brien (died 1831)
• October – George Galloway, poet and playwright
• November – John Dunlop, merchant and songwriter (died 1820)

Deaths

• 5 June – John Sinclair, Lord Murkle, judge
• 4 October – Sir John Clerk, 2nd Baronet, politician, lawyer, judge and composer (born 1676)

The arts

• 25 February – 11-year-old David Allan begins to study painting at the new Foulis Academy in Glasgow.^[5]
• David Dalrymple, as editor, publishes Edom of Gordon: an ancient Scottish poem.

See also

• Timeline of Scottish history

Notes and References

1. "Experiments upon Magnesia Alba, Quicklime, and Some Other Alcaline Substances", published 1756.
2. Web site: Webster’s Account of the Population of Scotland in 1755. National Records of Scotland. 2016-02-18.
3. Web site: Tynet, St Ninian's Church. ScotlandsPlaces. Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland. 2015-01-05. https://web.archive.org/web/20160303222424/http://www.scotlandsplaces.gov.uk/search_item/index.php?service=RCAHMS&id=84461. 3 March 2016. dead. dmy-all.
4. 1785. Roy. William. An Account of the Measurement of a Base on Hounslow-Heath. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. 75. 385–480. 10.1098/rstl.1785.0024. free. Introduction.
5. Web site: Notable Dates in History. The Flag in the Wind. The Scots Independent. 2016-02-18. https://web.archive.org/web/20160125210210/http://scotsindependent.scot/oldsitearchive/scotind/dates1-e.htm. 25 January 2016. dead. dmy-all.