Events from the year 1809 in Scotland.

• c. April – the General Association of Operative Weavers is formed.^[1]
• May – a construction railway at the site of Bell Rock Lighthouse is completed.^[2]
• August – Crinan Canal declared "finally complete".^[3]
• 16 August – Meikle Ferry disaster: An overloaded ferry crossing the Dornoch Firth to Tain market sinks, drowning 99.^[4]
• November – Thomas Telford certifies completion of his Dunkeld–Birnam bridge.^[5] His bridges at Ballater and Conon Bridge are also completed this year.
• 11 November – the North British and Mercantile Insurance company commences business as a fire insurance office in Edinburgh.^[6]
• 9 December – the Dumfries Courier is established as a weekly newspaper in Annan by Rev. Dr. Henry Duncan as The Dumfries and Galloway Courier.^[7]
• Highland Clearances – first commissioner for clearance of the Leveson-Gower family estates in Scotland for sheep farming, William Young, is appointed.
• The Tally Toor, a Martello tower, is erected off Leith.^[8]
• A bridge over the River Cart is washed away in a flood.^[9]
• Blackie and Son, publishers, are established in Glasgow by John Blackie as Blackie, Fullarton and Company.
• The Scottish Bible Society is established as the Edinburgh Bible Society, a missionary organization, by Christopher Anderson.
• The Caledonian Horticultural Society is established in Edinburgh.
• Arthur Edmondston's A View of the Ancient and Present State of the Zetland Islands is published.

• 16 February – John Laing, bibliographer and Free Church minister (died 1880)
• 20 April – James David Forbes, physicist, glaciologist and seismologist (died 1868 in Bristol)
• 7 June – William Forbes Skene, historian (died 1892)
• 22 August – John Hill Burton, historian (died 1881)
• 27 August – John West, pioneer of food canning (died 1888 in the United States)
• 8 September – Robert Reid Kalley, physician and Presbyterian missionary to the lusophone countries (died 1888)
• 21 October – John Stenhouse, chemist (died 1880 in London)
• 24 October – John Barr, poet (died 1889 in New Zealand)
• 29 December – William Ewart Gladstone, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (born in Liverpool; died 1898 in Wales)
• Alexander Allan, locomotive engineer (died 1891 in England)
• Archibald Campbell, born Douglas, laird (died 1868)

• 14 January – Robert Anstruther, British Army general (born 1768; died on active service at Corunna)
• 16 January – John Moore, British Army general (born 1761; killed in Battle of Corunna)
• 24 January – James Duff, 2nd Earl Fife (born 1729; died in London)
• 25 February – John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, colonial governor (born 1730; died in Ramsgate)
• 10 May – Andrew Bell, engraver, co-founder of the Encyclopædia Britannica (born 1726)
• 3 August – Andrew Mackay, mathematician (born 1760; died in London)
• 29 August – Robert Melvill, British Army general and antiquary (born 1723)
• 8 October – James Elphinston, philologist (born 1721; died in London)
• 18 December – Alexander Adam, classical scholar (born 1741)
• Sir William Douglas, 1st Baronet, landowner and industrialist

• 1809 in Ireland