title: 1785 in Scotland
text: # 1785 in Scotland
  
  Events from the year 1785 in Scotland.
  
  ## Incumbents
  
  ### Law officers
  
  * Lord Advocate – Ilay Campbell
  * Solicitor General for Scotland – Robert Dundas of Arniston
  
  ### Judiciary
  
  * Lord President of the Court of Session – Lord Arniston, the younger
  * Lord Justice General – The Viscount Stormont
  * Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Barskimming
  
  ## Events
  
  * 7 March – geologist James Hutton proposes the theory of uniformitarianism to the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
  * Late September – James Boswell’s The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides is published.
  * 5 October – flight by Florentine aeronaut Vincenzo Lunardi in a gas balloon from George Heriot's School, Edinburgh, across the Firth of Forth to Ceres, Fife (32 mi (51.5 km) in 1.5 hrs).
  * 23 November – Lunardi flies from St Andrew's Square, Glasgow, to Hawick.
  
  ## Births
  
  * 18 May – John Wilson, writer (died 1854)
  * 18 November – David Wilkie, painter (died at sea 1841)
  
  ## Deaths
  
  * 23 January – Matthew Stewart, mathematician (born 1717)
  * 4 October – Alexander Runciman, painter (born 1736)
  * 23 October – William Cochran, painter (born 1738)
  
  ## The arts
  
  * 22 May – Robert Burns' first child, Elizabeth ("Dear-bought Bess"), is born to his mother's servant, Elizabeth Paton and his poems "To a Mouse" and "Halloween" are written.
  * Scotland portal
  