Events from the year 1856 in Scotland.

• 4 January – Faculty of Actuaries established.
• February – an oak^[1] and a yew^[2] tree associated with William Wallace at his reputed birthplace of Elderslie are blown down in a storm.
• 1 April – Aberdeen Waterloo railway station opens to serve the Great North of Scotland Railway main line to Keith.
• November – James Clerk Maxwell takes up an appointment as Professor of Natural Philosophy at Marischal College, Aberdeen.
• 31 December – Lord Brougham's Act requires at least one party to a marriage contracted after this date to have been resident in Scotland for 21 days, putting a curb on Gretna Green marriage.^[3]

• Trinity College, Glasgow, established as a Church College of the Free Church of Scotland.
• Dunfermline claims city status in the United Kingdom by historical usage; the status is never officially recognised.^[4]
• William McEwan opens McEwan's Fountain Brewery at Fountainbridge in Edinburgh.
• The iron steamboat Thomas is built for service on the Forth and Clyde Canal, origin of the Clyde puffer.
• The Clyde Model Yacht Club, a predecessor of the Royal Northern and Clyde Yacht Club, is established.

• 30 May – James Pittendrigh Macgillivray, sculptor and poet (died 1938)
• 5 July – Ion Keith-Falconer, road racing cyclist, Arabic scholar and missionary (died 1887 in Aden)
• 15 August – Keir Hardie, socialist and labour leader (died 1915)^[5]
• 13 September – Henry Halcro Johnston, botanist, army physician and rugby union international (died 1939)
• 27 November – Matthew Stirling, locomotive engineer (died 1931 in Hull)
• 1 December – Malcolm Smith, Liberal politician (died 1935)
• William W. Naismith, mountaineer (died 1935)
• William Robertson, industrialist (died 1923)

• August – James Bremner, shipbuilder and salvor (born 1784)
• 30 August – John Ross, naval officer and Arctic explorer (born 1777)
• 20 September – Samuel Morison Brown, chemist, poet and essayist (born 1817)
• 23/24 December – Hugh Miller, geologist, by suicide (born 1802)
• 25 February – George Don, botanist (born 1798)

• McLellan Galleries opened in Glasgow.

• Timeline of Scottish history
• 1856 in Ireland