1879 in Scotland

Centuries:	17th; 18th; 19th; 20th; 21st;
Decades:	1850s; 1860s; 1870s; 1880s; 1890s;
See also:	List of years in Scotland; Timeline of Scottish history; 1879 in: The UK • Wales • Elsewhere; Scottish football: 1878–79 • 1879–80

Events from the year 1879 in Scotland.

Incumbents

4 January – Dundee-born Mormon missionary Hugh Findlay arrives in Shetland from the United States and on 31 March baptizes the islands' first two converts.^[1]
25 January – first service held in St Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh (Episcopal) on completion of the nave.
1 April – Dundee Stock Exchange established.
6 June – William Denny and Brothers launch the world's first ocean-going steamer to be built of mild steel, the SS Rotomahana, at Dumbarton.^[2]
31 July – the Caledonian Railway opens the original Glasgow Central station.
30 September – foundation stone of the Forth Bridge is laid on Inchgarvie.
2 October – William Denny and Brothers launch the world's first transatlantic steamer to be built of mild steel, the SS Buenos Ayrean, at Dumbarton. On 1 December she makes her maiden voyage out of Glasgow for South America.^[3]
28 December – the Tay Bridge disaster: the central part of the new Tay Bridge at Dundee collapses in a storm as a train passes over it, killing 78.^[4]
Construction of Garnethill Synagogue, Glasgow, the oldest to survive in Scotland, begins.
Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh moves to Lauriston Place.
First Angus cattle society formed.

13 January – William Reid Dick, sculptor (died 1961 in England)
16 January – Jimmy Gillespie, rugby union player (died 1943)
27 March – Catherine Carswell, née Catherine Roxburgh Macfarlane, author (died 1946 in England)
29 March – Evelyn Vida Baxter, ornithologist (died 1959)^[5]
24 August – John Maclean, Marxist (died 1923)
13 September – Tommy Tait, international footballer (died 1942)
21 October – Willie Anderson, golfer (died 1910 in the United States)
23 October – John MacDougall Hay, Church of Scotland minister and novelist (died 1919)
John Maxwell, film producer (died 1940 in England)
Henry J. Watt, experimental psychologist (died 1925)

19 June – James Valentine, photographer (born 1815)
23 July – Charles Baillie, Lord Jerviswoode, advocate, judge and politician (born 1804)
29 October – John Blackwood, publisher (born 1818)
5 November – James Clerk Maxwell, theoretical physicist (born 1831; died of abdominal cancer in Cambridge)^[6]
23 November – Mark Napier, lawyer, sheriff, biographer and historical author (born 1798)

6 September – first publication of a story by Arthur Conan Doyle, "The Mystery of Sasassa Valley" in Chambers's Journal.
Construction of Royalty Theatre, Glasgow, completed.

^ Jensen, Andrew (1914). Church Chronology: A Record of Important Events Pertaining to the History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. p. 103. ISBN 1-4179-6854-0.
^ "SS Rotomahana". Clydebuilt. Archived from the original on 12 March 2005. Retrieved 14 April 2014.
^ "S/S Buenos Ayrean, Allan Line". Norway Heritage. Retrieved 11 March 2016.
^ Palmer, Alan; Palmer, Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 303–304. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.
^ Ewan, Elizabeth L.; Innes, Sue; Reynolds, Sian; Pipes, Rose (2007). Biographical Dictionary of ScottishWomen. Edinburgh University Press. p. 32. ISBN 9780748626601.
^ Harman, Peter M. (1998). The Natural Philosophy of James Clerk Maxwell. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-00585-X.