1871 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; 1871 in: The UK • Wales • Elsewhere; Scottish football: • 1871–72

Events from the year 1871 in Scotland.

Incumbents

7 March – the first rugby international, played in Edinburgh, results in a 4–1 win by Scotland over England.^[1]
26 May – Parliament passes the Bank Holidays Act which creates five annual bank holidays in Scotland.^[2]
1 August – the Arlington Swimming Club, designed by John Burnet, opens in the district of Charing Cross, Glasgow.
6 November – the Edinburgh Street Tramways Company begins operating horsecars, the first tram system in Scotland.^[3]
10 November – missing Scottish explorer and missionary Dr. David Livingstone is located by journalist Henry Morton Stanley in Ujiji, near Lake Tanganyika.^[2]
Patent Asbestos Manufacturing Co. established in Glasgow, perhaps the first such plant in the U.K.^[4]
Thomas Lipton opens his first grocery shop, in Glasgow.

21 January – Ernest Kitto, cricketer in New Zealand (died 1897 at sea)
27 January – Samuel Peploe, painter (died 1935)
17 February
- John A. Gilruth, veterinary surgeon and colonial administrator (died 1937 in Australia)
- Peter Corsar Anderson, golfer (died 1955)
10 September – Thomas Adams, urban planner (died 1940)
12 September – John Campbell, international footballer (died 1947)
Lachlan Grant, physician (died 1945)
Thomas W. Lamb, theatre architect in the United States (died 1942)

William Alexander's realist novel Johnny Gibb of Gushetneuk is published in book form (having been serialised in the Aberdeen Free Press 1869-70).^[6]
William Black's novel A Daughter of Heth is published.^[7]

^ Palmer, Alan; Palmer, Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 293–294. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.
^ ^a ^b Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0.
^ McLean, David (30 April 2013). "Lost Edinburgh: Edinburgh Trams 1871-1956". The Scotsman. Edinburgh. Retrieved 20 August 2014.
^ Johnston, Ronald; McIvor, Arthur (2000). Lethal Work: a history of the asbestos tragedy in Scotland. East Linton: Tuckwell Press. p. 10. ISBN 1-86232-178-7.
^ Amodeo, Christian (June 2005). "Sir Roderick Impey Murchison: Pioneering Scottish geologist Roderick Murchison was instrumental in the identification and naming of several geological time periods". Geographical.
^ Donaldson, William (2004). "Alexander, William (1826–1894)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/39241. Retrieved 19 August 2013. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
^ Leavis, Q. D. (1965). Fiction and the Reading Public (2nd ed.). London: Chatto & Windus.