title: 1994 in Scotland
text: # 1994 in Scotland
  
  Events from the year 1994 in Scotland.
  
  ## Incumbents
  
  * Secretary of State for Scotland and Keeper of the Great Seal – Ian Lang
  
  ### Law officers
  
  * Lord Advocate – Lord Rodger of Earlsferry
  * Solicitor General for Scotland – Thomas Dawson
  
  ### Judiciary
  
  * Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice General – Lord Hope
  * Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Ross
  * Chairman of the Scottish Land Court – Lord Philip
  
  ## Events
  
  * March – Strathclyde water referendum indicates overwhelming opposition to the privatisation of water.
  * 5 May – elections are held for Scotland's Regional Councils.
  * 19 May – Robert Black, jailed for life four years ago for abducting a seven-year-old girl in the Scottish Borders, is found guilty of murdering three girls in the 1980s and sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommended minimum term of 35 years. Black later dies in HMP Maghaberry in Northern Ireland of a heart attack in January 2016.
  * 25 April – Dundee Institute of Technology elevated to the status of Abertay University.
  * 2 June – Chinook crash on Mull of Kintyre: An RAF Chinook helicopter carrying more than twenty leading intelligence experts crashes on the Mull of Kintyre, killing everyone on board.
  * 9 June – European elections result in Labour winning six of Scotland's eight MEPs, with the SNP winning the other two.
  * 25 June – The Greenock rail accident, caused by vandals placing concrete blocks on the rails, kills two people.
  * 30 June – Monklands East by-election results in the Labour Party retaining the seat despite a swing of 19.2% to the SNP.
  * 3 November – The Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994, that will reorganise local government by creating 32 unitary authorities, receives royal assent.
  * Dounreay nuclear power plant comes offline.
  * Highland Theological Institute established in Dingwall.
  
  ## Births
  
  * 1 January – Craig Murray, footballer
  * 14 January – Ross Murdoch, swimmer
  * 8 March – Claire Emslie, footballer
  * 11 March - Andrew Robertson, footballer
  * 12 March – Katie Archibald, cyclist
  * 23 March – Jack Hamilton, goalkeeper
  * 10 April – Siobhan Hunter, footballer
  * 29 April – Stephen Milne, swimmer
  * 24 May – Emily Nicholl, netball player
  * 11 July – Jake Wightman, middle-distance runner
  * 30 August – Jo Muir, modern pentathlete
  * 12 September – Mhairi Black, SNP MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South
  
  ## Deaths
  
  * 3 January – Marion Ross, physicist (born 1903)
  * 12 May – John Smith, leader of the Labour Party (UK) (born 1938)
  * 6 June – Mark McManus, film and television actor (born 1935)
  * 14 June – Denys Hay, historian (born 1915 in England)
  * Rhoda Bulter, poet (born 1929)
  
  ## Arts and literature
  
  * 9 May – release of Scottish group Wet Wet Wet's cover of the song Love Is All Around (1967), as featured in the recently released film Four Weddings and a Funeral. From 29 May it will spend 15 consecutive weeks at number one in the UK Singles Chart, the longest spell ever attained by a British act.
  * June – the old Empire Palace Theatre in Edinburgh reopens permanently as the Edinburgh Festival Theatre.
  * 23 August – K Foundation enact K Foundation Burn a Million Quid on the Ardfin Estate on Jura.
  * August – Theresa Breslin's young adult novel Whispers in the Graveyard is published.
  * James Kelman's stream of consciousness novel How Late It Was, How Late, written in Glasgow patter, is published.
  * Alternative rock band Snow Patrol is formed by students from Northern Ireland at the University of Dundee.
  