1851 in Scotland

Centuries:	17th; 18th; 19th; 20th; 21st;
Decades:	1830s; 1840s; 1850s; 1860s; 1870s;
See also:	List of years in Scotland; Timeline of Scottish history; 1851 in: The UK • Wales • Elsewhere

Events from the year 1851 in Scotland.

Incumbents

9 March – Robert Eden is consecrated as first Bishop of Moray and Ross in the Scottish Episcopal Church, an office he will hold until his death in 1886.
15 March – Explosion at Victoria Pit colliery, Nitshill kills 61 men and boys.
30/31 March – United Kingdom Census: Scotland's population is recorded as 2.89 million;^[1] about 7% are of Irish birth.
Cathedral of the Isles opened in Millport, Cumbrae, within the Episcopal Church's Diocese of Argyll and The Isles.
Donaldson's Hospital opens in Edinburgh, primarily for the education of deaf children.
Hebrides shipping services of Burns Brothers pass to David and Alexander Hutcheson and David MacBrayne as David Hutcheson & Co.
Bell's whisky is first blended.
St Leonard's Mill damask linen weaving factory established at Dunfermline by Erskine Beveridge.
Publication of Daniel Wilson's The Archaeology and Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, which introduces the word prehistoric into the English archaeological vocabulary.
James Valentine (photographer) establishes the printing business of Valentine & Sons in Dundee.

March – James Lang, footballer
20 April – Young Tom Morris, golfer, youngest winner of The Open Championship (died 1875)
1 August – Daniel Macaulay Stevenson, shipbroker, Liberal politician and philanthropist (died 1944)
11 October – Lord Douglas Gordon, Liberal MP (died 1888)
30 October – George Lennox Watson, naval architect (died 1904)
27 December – Erskine Beveridge, textile manufacturer and antiquarian (died 1920)
James Johnston, missionary (died 1921 in Jamaica)

c. June – English artist Sir Edwin Landseer's painting of a Scottish stag, The Monarch of the Glen, is first exhibited, at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in London.

^ "Registrar General's Review of Scotland's Population". www.gro-scotland.gov.uk. 29 July 2005. Archived from the original on 11 August 2013. Retrieved 1 July 2013.