Events from the year 1833 in Scotland.

• 16 March – at an auction of the art collection of John Clerk, Lord Eldin (died 1832) at his home in Picardy Place, Edinburgh, the floor collapses, killing the banker Alexander Smith.^[1]
• April – Glasgow Necropolis opened.^[2]
• 10 April – St Peter's RC Primary School, Aberdeen, founded.^[3]
• 28 August –– the Slavery Abolition Act receives Royal Assent, abolishing slavery in most of the British Empire. A £20 million fund is established to compensate slaveowners, many of whom are in Scotland.
• 7 October – the Edinburgh Emancipation Society, Edinburgh Ladies' Emancipation Society, Glasgow Emancipation Society and Glasgow Ladies' Emancipation Society are formed in support of abolitionism.
• 30 October – Edinburgh Town Council first allows newspaper reporters to attend its meetings.^[4]
• Burgh Police (Scotland) Act permits burghs to establish themselves as police burghs, having powers to provide policing and to pave and light streets.
• Glengoyne distillery is established as the Burnfoot distillery by George Connell on the Highland line near Dumgoyne.^[5]
• John Menzies is established as a newsagent in Edinburgh.
• Madras College is established in St Andrews by merger of the grammar and English schools under the bequest of locally-born educationalist Rev. Dr. Andrew Bell (died 1832), promoter of the 'Madras system' of education.^[6]
• Chemist Thomas Graham proposes Graham's Law.
• Statue of William Pitt the Younger (died 1806) erected in George Street, Edinburgh.^[7]
• The Royal Perth Golfing Society gains its royal patronage.

• 1 January – Robert Lawson, architect (died 1902 in New Zealand)
• 24 February – William Howie Wylie, journalist and Baptist (died 1891)
• 20 March – Daniel Dunglas Home, medium (died 1886 in France)
• 16 April – John Malcolm, 1st Baron Malcolm, soldier and politician (died 1902 in France)
• 22 April – John Waldie, politician in Ontario (died 1907 in Canada)
• 16 July – Donald Reid, landowner, businessman and politician in Otago (died 1919 in New Zealand)
• 26 July – Alexander Henry Rhind, antiquarian and Egyptologist (died 1863 in Italy)
• 12 August – Aylmer Cameron, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross (died 1909 in England)
• 12 November – George Paul Chalmers, painter (killed 1878)
• 14 December – Alexander Young, mechanical engineer and government official in Hawaii (died 1910 in Honolulu)

• 3 May – James Bell, geographical writer (born 1769)
• 29 May – William Marshall, fiddle player and composer (born 1748)
• August – Andrew Cochrane-Johnstone, soldier, colonial governor and fraudster (born 1767; died in France)
• 10 October – Thomas Atkinson, poet, bookseller and politician (born c.1801; died at sea)
• 11 November – James Grant, naval officer (born 1772; died in France)
• 30 November – William Bannatyne, Lord Bannatyne, lawyer and antiquarian (born 1743)

• May – the final revised edition of The Poetical Works of Sir Walter Scott, Bart, edited by Scott's son-in-law J. G. Lockhart, begins publication.^[8]
• Allan Cunningham's poem The Maid of Elvar is published.^[8]

• 1833 in Ireland