1856 in Scotland

← 1855 1854 1853 1852 1851 1856 in Scotland → 1857 1858 1859 1860 1861
Centuries:	17th 18th 19th 20th 21st
Decades:	1830s 1840s 1850s 1860s 1870s
See also:	List of years in Scotland Timeline of Scottish history 1856 in: The UK • Wales • Elsewhere

Events from the year 1856 in Scotland.

Incumbents

Further information: Politics of Scotland and Order of precedence in Scotland

Law officers

• Lord Advocate – James Moncreiff
• Solicitor General for Scotland – Edward Maitland

Judiciary

• Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice General – Lord Colonsay
• Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Glencorse

Events

• 4 January – Faculty of Actuaries established.
• February – an oak^[1] and a yew^[2] tree associated with William Wallace at his reputed birthplace of Elderslie are blown down in a storm.
• 1 April – Aberdeen Waterloo railway station opens to serve the Great North of Scotland Railway main line to Keith.
• November – James Clerk Maxwell takes up an appointment as Professor of Natural Philosophy at Marischal College, Aberdeen.
• 31 December – Lord Brougham's Act requires at least one party to a marriage contracted after this date to have been resident in Scotland for 21 days, putting a curb on Gretna Green marriage.^[3]

Otis elevator in Glasgow, imported from the U.S. in 1856 for Gardner's Warehouse, the oldest cast-iron fronted building in the British Isles

• Trinity College, Glasgow, established as a Church College of the Free Church of Scotland.
• Dunfermline claims city status in the United Kingdom by historical usage; the status is never officially recognised.^[4]
• William McEwan opens McEwan's Fountain Brewery at Fountainbridge in Edinburgh.
• The iron steamboat Thomas is built for service on the Forth and Clyde Canal, origin of the Clyde puffer.
• The Clyde Model Yacht Club, a predecessor of the Royal Northern and Clyde Yacht Club, is established.

Births

• 30 May – James Pittendrigh Macgillivray, sculptor and poet (died 1938)
• 5 July – Ion Keith-Falconer, road racing cyclist, Arabic scholar and missionary (died 1887 in Aden)
• 15 August – Keir Hardie, socialist and labour leader (died 1915)^[5]
• 13 September – Henry Halcro Johnston, botanist, army physician and rugby union international (died 1939)
• 27 November – Matthew Stirling, locomotive engineer (died 1931 in Hull)
• 1 December – Malcolm Smith, Liberal politician (died 1935)
• William W. Naismith, mountaineer (died 1935)
• William Robertson, industrialist (died 1923)

Deaths

• August – James Bremner, shipbuilder and salvor (born 1784)
• 30 August – John Ross, naval officer and Arctic explorer (born 1777)
• 20 September – Samuel Morison Brown, chemist, poet and essayist (born 1817)
• 23/24 December – Hugh Miller, geologist, by suicide (born 1802)
• 25 February – George Don, botanist (born 1798)

The arts

• McLellan Galleries opened in Glasgow.

See also

• Timeline of Scottish history
• 1856 in Ireland

References

1. Hight, Julian (2011). Britain's Tree Story. London: National Trust. p. 25. ISBN 978-1-907892-20-2.
2. Greenwood, Paul (2005). "William Wallace's Yew". Ancient Yew Group. Retrieved 26 August 2014.
3. "Lord Brougham Cooling off Act 1856". Gretna Green since 1754. Gretna Green Ltd. Archived from the original on 9 May 2014. Retrieved 8 May 2014.
4. Beckett, J. V. (2005). City status in the British Isles, 1830–2002. Historical urban studies. Aldershot: Ashgate. ISBN 0-7546-5067-7.
5. "James Keir Hardie (1856–1915)". BBC. Retrieved 24 June 2013.