1740 in Scotland
# 1740 in Scotland

Events from the year 1740 in Scotland.

## Incumbents

* Secretary of State for Scotland: vacant

### Law officers

* Lord Advocate – Charles Erskine
* Solicitor General for Scotland – William Grant of Prestongrange

### Judiciary

* Lord President of the Court of Session – Lord Culloden
* Lord Justice General – Lord Ilay
* Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Milton

## Events

* 7 July – Adam Smith sets out from Scotland to take up a scholarship at Balliol College, Oxford.
* Hugh and Robert Tennent take over the Wellpark Brewery, originally known as the Drygate Brewery, in Glasgow.
* General George Wade is succeeded as Commander-in-chief in Scotland by Sir John Cope.
* The 43rd Highland Regiment of Foot (the 'Black Watch') first musters, at Aberfeldy.

## Births

* 28 March (bapt.) – James Small, inventor (died 1793)
* 15 July – Archibald Hamilton, 9th Duke of Hamilton (died 1819)
* 29 October – James Boswell, diarist and biographer of Samuel Johnson (died 1795)
* James Cannon, mathematician and a principal draftsman of the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 (died in 1782 in the United States)
* William Davidson, settler, lumberman, shipbuilder and politician in New Brunswick (died 1790 in Canada)
* William Smellie, master printer, naturalist, antiquary, editor and encyclopedist (died 1795)
* Christopher Wyvill, cleric, landowner and political reformer in England (died 1822)

## Deaths

* 2 February – John Simson, heterodox theologian (born 1668?)
* 22 May – John Boyle, 2nd Earl of Glasgow (born 1688)
* 8 September – William Bruce, 8th Earl of Kincardine

## The arts

* 1 August – the patriotic song "Rule, Britannia!", with words by Scottish-born poet James Thomson, is first performed at Cliveden, the English country home of Frederick, Prince of Wales.
