Events from the year 1953 in Scotland.

• Secretary of State for Scotland and Keeper of the Great Seal – James Stuart

• 30 January – The cargo vessel Clan MacQuarrie runs aground near Borve, Lewis in a storm; all 66 crew are rescued by breeches buoy the following morning.^[1]
• 31 January – The car ferry MV Princess Victoria, sailing from Stranraer to Larne in Northern Ireland, sinks in the Irish Sea in a storm killing 133 people on board.^[2] Fleetwood trawler Michael Griffiths sinks seven miles south of Barra Head with the loss of 13 crew.^[1]
• 9 February – Fraserburgh life-boat John and Charles Kennedy capsizes on service: six crew killed.
• 5 March – PS Maid of the Loch, the last full-size paddle steamer built in the UK, is launched on the River Clyde at A. & J. Inglis's Pointhouse Shipyard. On 25 May, she enters excursion service on Loch Lomond.
• c. March – New Bridge Street Bridge across Peterhead harbour completed, the last Scherzer rolling lift bridge erected by Sir William Arrol & Co. of Glasgow.
• 16 April – The Queen launches the Royal Yacht Britannia at John Brown & Company shipbuilders at Clydebank.^[3]
• 20 May – Celtic F.C. beat Hibernian 2-0 in the final of the Coronation Cup (football) at Hampden Park.^[4]
• 20 June – Most of the population of the island of Soay, Skye, moves to the Isle of Mull.
• 24 June – First state visit of Queen Elizabeth II to Scotland since her accession; the Honours of Scotland are carried before the monarch for the first time since 1822^[5] and presented to her at St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh.
• 22 July – Great Bernera is connected to Lewis by Scotland's first prestressed concrete girder bridge.^[6]
• 8 August – The northbound Royal Scot train derails near Abington descending from Beattock Summit due to buckling of track caused by high temperature; 37 are injured.^[7]
• 27 October – Arbroath life-boat Robert Lindsay capsizes on service: six crew killed.
• Scottish law case of MacCormick v Lord Advocate decides that the right of Elizabeth II to so style herself in Scotland is a matter of royal prerogative.
• IBM establishes a manufacturing facility in Greenock.

• 1 January – Maureen Beattie, Irish-born actress
• 6 January – Malcolm Young, rock guitarist (died 2017 in Australia)
• 11 January – John Sessions, born John Gibb Marshall, actor and comedian (died 2020)
• 20 January – John Robertson, international footballer
• 27 February – Gavin Esler, television journalist
• 6 April – Patrick Doyle, film composer
• 6 May
  • Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 1997-2007
  • Graeme Souness, international footballer and manager
• 19 May – Patrick Hodge, lawyer, a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom
• 21 May – Jim Devine, Labour politician^[8]
• 22 May – Andy Nisbet, mountaineer (died 2019)
• 23 May – Ronald Frame, fiction writer
• 7 June
  • Colin Boyd, Baron Boyd of Duncansby, lawyer and judge
  • Dougie Donnelly, television presenter
• 23 June – John Stahl, actor (died 2022)^[9]
• 24 August – Sam Torrance, golfer
• 31 August – Jimmy McKenna, actor
• 8 September – John McGlynn, actor
• 10 September – John Thurso, born John Sinclair, businessman and Liberal Democrat politician
• 28 September – Jim Diamond, pop singer-songwriter (died 2015)
• 21 October – Eric Faulkner, pop musician
• 4 November – Derek Johnstone, international footballer
• 12 November – Calum MacDonald, Celtic rock songwriter and percussionist
• 22 December – Gregor Fisher, actor and comedian
• Steven Campbell, figurative painter (died 2007)
• Ian Read, businessman

• 19 March – Thomas Hunter, Unionist Party politician and Member of Parliament (MP) for Perth (born 1872)
• 1 June – Alex James, international footballer (born 1901)
• 23 July – Sir Thomas Jaffrey, actuary (born 1861)
• 30 September – Lewis Fry Richardson, mathematical physicist (born 1881 in England)

• April – Comedy film Laxdale Hall is released.
• Lewis Spence's Collected Poems are published in Edinburgh.

• 1953 in Northern Ireland