1850 in Scotland
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Events from the year 1850 in Scotland.
See also:List of years in Scotland
Timeline of Scottish history
1850 in: The UK ⢠Wales ⢠Elsewhere
Timeline of Scottish history
1850 in: The UK ⢠Wales ⢠Elsewhere
Incumbents
Law officers
Judiciary
Events
- 1 April â Aberdeen Railway opens to a terminus at Ferryhill, Aberdeen.
- 15 April â iron paddle steamer SS City of Glasgow, built by Tod & Macgregor of Partick, makes her maiden voyage as the first steamer on the GlasgowâNew York route.
- 18 June â paddle steamer Orion sinks off Portpatrick[1] through the negligence of her master with the loss of 50 lives.
- 17 October â James Young patents a method of distilling paraffin from coal, laying the foundations for the Scottish paraffin industry.
- December â destitute Gaelic speakers from the island of Barra begin to appear in Glasgow, displaced by the Highland Clearances.
- Cox Brothers open the Camperdown Works in Dundee which will become the world's largest jute works.
- Remodelling of Dunrobin Castle completed.
- Skara Brae revealed by weather.
Births
- 4 February â Thomas Lomar Gray, seismologist (died 1908 in the United States)
- 24 April â Murdo MacKenzie, businessman (died 1939 in the United States)
- 30 April â George Gibb, transport administrator (died 1925 in London)
- 12 May â Charles McLaren, 1st Baron Aberconway, jurist, landowner, industrialist and Unionist politician (died 1934 in London)[2]
- 27 May â Thomas Neill Cream, the "Lambeth Poisoner", serial killer (hanged 1897 in London)
- 14 June â Eliza Humphreys, née Gollan (pen name 'Rita'), novelist (died 1938 in England)
- 13 August â Peter Drummond, steam locomotive engineer (died 1918)
- 22 August â William Morrison, chemist, creator of an electric carriage (died 1927 in the United States)
- 13 November â Robert Louis Stevenson, novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer (died 1894 in Samoa)
- 11 December â Mary Victoria Douglas-Hamilton, married into European nobility (died 1922 in Budapest)
Deaths
- 26 January â Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey, judge and literary critic (born 1773)
- 5 June â Thomas Brown, architect (born 1781)
- 18 June â John Burns, surgeon (born 1775) (in PS Orion disaster)
- 12 July â Robert Stevenson, civil engineer noted for lighthouses (born 1772)[3]
- 3 December â John Gibb, civil engineer and contractor (born 1776)
- 29 December â William Hamilton Maxwell, novelist (born 1792 in Ireland)
- Approximate date â Walter Sutherland, last native speaker of the Norn language on Unst