1749 in Scotland

Events

5 January – James Wolfe is promoted to major in Peyton's Regiment of Foot, at this time stationed in Glasgow.
6 March – A "corpse riot" breaks out in Glasgow after a body disappears from a churchyard in the Gorbals district. It is suspected that anatomy students at the Glasgow Infirmary "had raised a dead body from the grave and carried it to the college" for dissection.^[1] The city guard intervenes after a mob of protesters begin breaking windows at random buildings, and groups of citizens begin to make regular patrols of church graveyards.^[2]
4 June – A fire in Glasgow leaves 200 families homeless.^[3]
A stagecoach service opens between Edinburgh and Glasgow.
The Treason Outlawries (Scotland) Act is passed.

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Births

1 June – James Cunningham, 14th Earl of Glencairn, nobleman, soldier and patron (died 1791 in England)
18 June – John Brown, miniature painter (died 1787)
29 August – Gilbert Blane, naval physician (died 1834 in England)
6 September – Benjamin Bell, surgeon (died 1806)
October – Archibald Skirving, portrait painter (died 1819)
3 November – Daniel Rutherford, physician, chemist and botanist noted for the isolation of nitrogen (died 1819)
7 November – Charles Smith, portrait painter (died 1824)
8 December – Hugo Arnot, né Pollock, lawyer and campaigner (died 1786)
15 December – James Graeme, poet (died 1772)
John Cunningham, 15th Earl of Glencairn, nobleman, cavalry officer and priest (died 1796)
Ralph Walker, civil engineer (died 1824 in England)

Deaths

18 April – Alexander Robertson of Struan, chief of Clan Donnachaidh, Jacobite leader and poet (born c. 1668/70)^[4]
19 October – William Ged, goldsmith and inventor of stereotyping (born 1699)
19 December – George Seton, 5th Earl of Winton, exiled Jacobite (born c. 1678; died in Italy)
25 December – John Lindsay, 20th Earl of Crawford, 1st colonel of the Black Watch (born 1702)
John Munro, 4th of Newmore, soldier and politician

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Incumbents