1842 in Scotland explained

Events from the year 1842 in Scotland.

Incumbents

Law officers

• Lord Advocate – Sir William Rae, Bt until October; then Duncan McNeill
• Solicitor General for Scotland – Duncan McNeill; then Adam Anderson

Judiciary

• Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice General – Lord Boyle
• Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Hope

Events

• 3 January – 3rd Scottish Convention of Chartists opens in Glasgow.^[1]
• 21 February – Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway opened.^[2]
• 29 April – New Market opened in Aberdeen.^[3]
• May – the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland makes a "Claim of Rights" (drafted by Alexander Colquhoun-Stirling-Murray-Dunlop) asserting the church's independence of state control in spiritual matters.^[4]
• 1 September – Queen Victoria arrives by sea at Granton, Edinburgh, to start her first visit to Scotland.^[5]
• September – Robert Davidson's experimental battery-electric locomotive Galvani is demonstrated on the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway.
• The Sobieski Stuarts' Vestiarium Scoticum is published in Edinburgh, purporting to be a reproduction from an old manuscript illustrating traditional Scottish clan tartan dress.
• A velocipede rider from Dumfriesshire, perhaps Kirkpatrick Macmillan, knocks down a pedestrian in the Gorbals district of Glasgow.^[6]
• James Shanks patents and begins to produce the pony-drawn lawn mower.^[7]
• Glasgow Botanic Gardens moves to its current location.
• Carnoustie Golf Links opened.^[8]

Births

• 16 April – Laidlaw Purves, surgeon and golfer (died 1917 in England)
• 1 May – David Boyle, archaeologist in Canada (died 1911)
• 27 June – Jamie Anderson, golfer (died 1905)
• 20 September – James Dewar chemist and physicist (died 1923)
• 12 October – Robert Gillespie Reid, railway contractor in Canada (died 1908)

Deaths

• 28 April – Charles Bell, surgeon, anatomist, neurologist and philosophical theologian (born 1774)
• 31 May – James Fergusson, judge (born 1769)
• 12 December – Robert Haldane, theologian (born 1764 in London)
• 24 December – Adam Gillies, Lord Gillies, judge (born 1760)

See also

• Timeline of Scottish history
• 1842 in Ireland

Notes and References

1. Book: Wilson, Alexander. The Chartist Movement in Scotland. Manchester University Press. 1970. 071900411X.
2. News: Glasgow Constitutional. Opening Of The Edinburgh And Glasgow Railway. The Times. London. 1842-02-22. 6. 17913.
3. The New Market. Leopard. Aberdeen. November 1974. 32–5.
4. Book: Kermack, W. R.. 19 Centuries of Scotland. Edinburgh. Johnston. 1944. 87.
5. Web site: Victoria's Visit. National Library of Scotland. 2014-06-16.
6. James. Johnston. The first bicycle. The Gallovidian. Dumfries. 4. Winter 1899.
7. Web site: History of the Lawnmower: Part One: 1830-1850s. The Hall & Duck Trust. 2014-04-28.
8. The World Atlas of Golf, 2nd ed. (1988); Finegan, James W., Scotland: Where Golf is Great (2010).