1818 in Scotland
Events from the year 1818 in Scotland .
Incumbents
Law officers
Judiciary
Events
13 January – Torgoyle Bridge in Glenmoriston is swept away by an exceptional flood event.[ 1]
4 February – the Honours of Scotland are put on display in Edinburgh Castle after being discovered in store there;[ 2] Walter Scott , one of the prime movers in the discovery, is rewarded with a baronetcy in 1820.
17 February – the remains of King Robert the Bruce found at Dunfermline Abbey .[ 3]
3 March – construction of the Union Canal begins at the Edinburgh end.[ 4]
19 March – Church of St John the Evangelist, Edinburgh , designed by William Burn , dedicated.
Mid-May – paddle steamer Thames makes the first steamboat passage from the Clyde to Dublin .[ 5]
13–14 June – Rob Roy makes the first steamboat passage from the Clyde to Belfast .[ 6]
New road bridge at Spean Bridge completed to a design by Thomas Telford .[ 7]
First public supply of gas in Glasgow.
Robert Barclay founds the engineering company in Glasgow that will become marine engineers Barclay Curle .
Shipbuilder Thomas Morton of Leith invents the patent slip .
Robert Stirling builds the first practical version of his Stirling engine .
Restoration of the great house at Rosehall begins, to assist which a private canal is dug.[ 8]
The post of Regius Professor of Botany, Glasgow , is established by King George III , Robert Graham, MD, being the first holder; Thomas Thomson takes up his appointment as first Regius Professor of Chemistry here.
Births
21 February – George Wilson , chemist (died 1859 )
10 March – William Menelaus , mechanical engineer (died 1882 in Wales )
17 May – William Hay , architect (died 1888 )
11 June – Alexander Bain , philosopher and educationalist (died 1903 )
22 June – Donald Mackenzie , advocate and judge (died 1875 )
22 July – Thomas Stevenson , lighthouse designer and meteorologist (died 1887 )
5 August – Thomas Elder , pastoralist, businessman, racehorse breeder, politician and philanthropist in Australia (died 1897 in Australia )
23 August – John Cairns , Presbyterian divine (died 1892 )
25 September – Helen Macfarlane , radical writer (died 1860 )
3 October – Alexander Macmillan , publisher (died 1896 )
24 October – William Forsyth , writer (died 1879 )
7 December – John Blackwood , publisher (died 1879 )
Andrew Leslie , shipbuilder
Alexander McLachlan , poet (died 1896 in Canada )
Deaths
The arts
June–August – English poet John Keats with his friend Charles Armitage Brown makes a walking tour of Scotland , Ireland and the English Lake District . On 11 July, while in Scotland, he visits Burns Cottage , the birthplace of Robert Burns (1759–96). Before Keats arrives, he writes to a friend "one of the pleasantest means of annulling self is approaching such a shrine as the cottage of Burns — we need not think of his misery — that is all gone — bad luck to it — I shall look upon it all with unmixed pleasure."[ 10] but his encounter with the cottage's alcoholic custodian returns him to thoughts of misery.[ 11] On 2 August he climbs to the summit of Ben Nevis , on which he writes a sonnet.[ 12]
10 June – first performance of the opera Rob Roy MacGregor , William Henry Murray 's adaptation of Walter Scott's 1817 novel Rob Roy , in Edinburgh;[ 13] Mrs Nicol plays "Jean McAlpine".
18 July – Walter Scott 's novel The Heart of Midlothian , set during the Porteous Riots of 1736, is published (as Tales of My Landlord , 2nd series, by 'Jedediah Cleishbotham ', in 4 volumes); a shipload from the Ballantyne publishing business is sent from Edinburgh to London.[ 14]
18 September – the original Theatre Royal in Glasgow becomes the first theatre in Scotland to be lit by gas.[ 2] [ 15]
James Barr composes a musical setting of the late Robert Tannahill 's "Thou Bonnie Wood of Craigielea" which will later become the basis of the tune "Waltzing Matilda ".[ 16]
Ludwig van Beethoven composes settings of Twenty-Five Scottish Songs .
See also
References
^ 9th report of the Parliamentary Commissioners for Highland Roads and Bridges, April 1821.
^ a b "Chronology of Scottish History" . A Timeline of Scottish History . Rampant Scotland. Retrieved 18 May 2014 .
^ "Dunfermline celebrates discovery of Robert the Bruce remains" . Scotsman . Retrieved 25 February 2018 .
^ "History of Edinburgh" . Visions of Scotland . Archived from the original on 14 February 2015. Retrieved 18 May 2014 .
^ Spratt, H. Philip (1958). The Birth of the Steamboat . London: Charles Griffin. pp. 95–7 .
^ Moody, T. W.; et al., eds. (1989). A New History of Ireland. 8 : A Chronology of Irish History . Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-821744-2 .
^ "Spean Bridge" . Canmore . Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland . 2007. Retrieved 9 August 2014 .
^ Forbes, N.; Howat, J. M. T. (2002). "The Rosehall Canal: The Most Northerly in Great Britain?". Journal of the Railway and Canal Historical Society . 34 : 38–9.
^ Royle, Trevor (2012). The Mainstream Companion to Scottish Literature . Random House. p. 92. ISBN 9781780574196 .
^ Costa, Robert (2009-08-04). "Keats’s House, Restored" . The Wall Street Journal . Retrieved 2009-08-12. Archived 2009-08-15.
^ Colvin, Sidney . John Keats .
^ "200 years ago Keats climbed Ben Nevis" . Keats 200 . 2018. Retrieved 1 April 2020 .
^ Burwick, Frederick (2011). Playing to the Crowd London Popular Theater, 1780-1830 . New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 121. ISBN 978-0230370654 .
^ Sutherland, John (2014). How to be Well Read . London: Random House. p. 214. ISBN 978-1-847-94640-9 .
^ London theatres had been gaslit the previous year. "Theatres Compete in Race to Install Gas Illumination – 1817" (PDF) . Over The Footlights . Retrieved 20 May 2014 .
^ O'Keeffe, Dennis (2012). Waltzing Matilda: The Secret History of Australia's Favourite Song . Sydney: Allen and Unwin. ISBN 978-1-74237-706-3 .
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