1764 in Scotland
overview of Scotland-related events during the year of 1764

Events from the year 1764 in Scotland.
Incumbents
Law officers
Lord Advocate – Thomas Miller of Glenlee
Solicitor General for Scotland – James Montgomery jointly with Francis Garden; then James Montgomery alone
Judiciary
Lord President of the Court of Session – Lord Arniston, the younger
Lord Justice General – Duke of Queensberry
Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Minto
Events
3 January – Edinburgh Advertiser newspaper begins publication.
November – The Speculative Society established in Edinburgh as a debating group, part of the Scottish Enlightenment.
New Byth established as a planned village in Aberdeenshire by the local laird.
New liturgy for the Scottish Episcopal Church published in Edinburgh.
The turnip is first cultivated in Scotland as a field crop, by Dawson of Frogden (Roxburghshire).
Howden Bridge built at Mid Calder.
Approximate date – Yair Bridge built across the River Tweed by William Mylne.
Births
c. 1 February – George Duff, naval officer (killed 1805 at Battle of Trafalgar)
22 February – Alexander Campbell, musician and miscellaneous writer (died 1824)
5 May – Robert Craufurd, general (killed 1812 at Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo)
11 July – Jane Aitken, printer (died 1832 in the United States)
5 October – Isaac Cruikshank, painter and caricaturist (died 1811 in London)
10 October – John Dick, minister and theologian (died 1833)
October – William Symington, mechanical engineer, steamboat pioneer (died 1831 in London)
6 November – Robert Heron, writer (died 1807 in London)
Alexander Mackenzie, explorer of northern Canada (died 1820)
Deaths
23 May – William Grant, Lord Prestongrange, politician and judge (born 1701; died at Bath)
The arts
Pompeo Batoni paints portraits of Thomas Dundas and Alexander Gordon, 4th Duke of Gordon in Rome.
“1764 in Scotland” enters the record as overview of Scotland-related events during the year of 1764. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Scotland, overview and Scotland-related can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “1764 in Scotland” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.