Scotland

Highland Railway formed from the Inverness-Perth Junction & Inverness-Aberdeen-Junction Railways

The Highland Railway (HR) was one of the smaller British railways before the Railways Act 1921, operating north of Perth railway station in Scotland and serving the farthest north of Britain. Based in Inverness, the company was formed by merger in 1865, absorbing over 249 miles (401 km) of line. It continued to expand, reaching Wick and Thurso in the north and Kyle of Lochalsh in the west, eventually serving the counties of Caithness, Sutherland, Ross & Cromarty, Inverness, Perth, Nairn, Moray and Banff. Southward it connected with the Caledonian Railway at Stanley Junction, north of Perth, and eastward with the Great North of Scotland Railway at Boat of Garten, Elgin, Keith and Portessie.

Madeleine Smith acquitted of murder

Madeleine Hamilton Smith (29 March 1835 – 12 April 1928) was a 19th-century Glasgow socialite who was the accused in a sensational murder trial in Scotland in 1857.

David Livingstone reached Victoria Falls in Africa

David Livingstone, the Scottish missionary and explorer, reached Victoria Falls in Africa on November 16, 1855. He was born on 19 March 1813 in the mill town of Blantyre, Scotland, in a tenement building for the workers of a cotton factory on the banks of the River Clyde under the bridge crossing into Bothwell

John Gibson Lockhart, biographer and critic, editor Blackwoods magazine, died

John Gibson Lockhart (12 June 1794 – 25 November 1854) was a Scottish writer and editor. He is best known as the author of the seminal, and much-admired, seven-volume biography of his father-in-law Sir Walter Scott: Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart

Association for Vindication of Scottish Rights (Home Rule organization) founded in Edinburgh

Expressions of this Scottish nationalism were seen in the setting up in 1853 of the National Association for the Vindication of Scottish Rights.

Novelist and poet Robert Louis Stevenson born Edinburgh

Robert Louis Stevenson (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson; 13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as Treasure Island, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Kidnapped and A Child’s Garden of Verses.

Mary Slessor, missionary in Nigeria, West Africa, born in Aberdeen, Scotland

Mary Slessor, the Scottish Presbyterian missionary, was born on December 2, 1848, in Gilcomston Aberdeen, Scotland. She was born to a poor working-class family who could not afford proper education.

Arthur James Balfour, born

Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, KG, OM, PC, FRS, FBA, DL 25 July 1848 – 19 March 1930), also known as Lord Balfour, was a British Conservative statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1902 to 1905.

The Caledonian Railway company opened

Greenwich Mean Time adopted by Scotland

Scotland adopted Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) in 1880. Prior to this, local mean time, based on the local meridian, was used in different regions, which led to variations in timekeeping across the country. The adoption of GMT was part of a wider movement towards standardizing time that took place in the 19th century, primarily driven by the expansion of railway networks and the need for uniform timekeeping.