1871 in Scotland
overview of Scotland-related events during the year of 1871
Events from the year 1871 in Scotland.
Incumbents
Law officers
Lord Advocate – George Young
Solicitor General for Scotland – Andrew Rutherfurd-Clark
Judiciary
Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice General – Lord Glencorse
Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Moncreiff
Events
7 March – the first rugby international, played in Edinburgh, results in a 4–1 win by Scotland over England.
26 May – Parliament passes the Bank Holidays Act which creates five annual bank holidays in Scotland.
1 August – the Arlington Swimming Club, designed by John Burnet, opens in the district of Charing Cross, Glasgow.
6 November – the Edinburgh Street Tramways Company begins operating horsecars, the first tram system in Scotland.
10 November – missing Scottish explorer and missionary Dr. David Livingstone is located by journalist Henry Morton Stanley in Ujiji, near Lake Tanganyika.
Patent Asbestos Manufacturing Co. established in Glasgow, perhaps the first such plant in the U.K.
Thomas Lipton opens his first grocery shop, in Glasgow.
Births
21 January – Ernest Kitto, cricketer in New Zealand (died 1897 at sea)
27 January – Samuel Peploe, painter (died 1935)
17 February
John A. Gilruth, veterinary surgeon and colonial administrator (died 1937 in Australia)
Peter Corsar Anderson, golfer (died 1955)
10 September – Thomas Adams, urban planner (died 1940)
12 September – John Campbell, international footballer (died 1947)
Lachlan Grant, physician (died 1945)
Thomas W. Lamb, theatre architect in the United States (died 1942)
Deaths
5 February – James Munro, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross (born 1826)
17 March – Robert Chambers, publisher and geologist (born 1802)
20 April – Samuel Halkett, librarian (born 1814)
6 September – James Burns, shipowner (born 1789)
22 October – Roderick Murchison, geologist (born 1792)
The arts
William Alexander's realist novel Johnny Gibb of Gushetneuk is published in book form (having been serialised in the Aberdeen Free Press 1869-70).
“1871 in Scotland” enters the record as overview of Scotland-related events during the year of 1871. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Scotland, overview and Scotland-related can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16147315. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1871, 1897, 1935 and 1937.
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