1740 in Scotland

Centuries:	16th; 17th; 18th; 19th; 20th;
Decades:	1720s; 1730s; 1740s; 1750s; 1760s;
See also:	List of years in Scotland; Timeline of Scottish history; 1740 in: Great Britain • Wales • Elsewhere

Events from the year 1740 in Scotland.

Incumbents

7 July – Adam Smith sets out from Scotland to take up a scholarship at Balliol College, Oxford.^[1]
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.

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)

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.^[2]

^ "On this day in 1740..." Adam Smith Institute. 7 July 2010. Retrieved 19 November 2019.
^ Williams, Hywel (2005). Cassell's Chronology of World History. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. pp. 308. ISBN 0-304-35730-8.