Engineer. Responsible for the Forth Rail Bridge and the replacement Tay Rail Bridge which were the two most substantial bridges in the world of their time and are still in constant use today. Also designed on Tower Bridge in London.
Engineer. Inventor of the television.
Politician. Prime Minister between 1902 and 1906. The "Balfour Declaration" of 1917 promised the Zionists a home in Palestine.
Author and Playright. Best known for the creation of Peter Pan, the boy who would not grow up.
Effectively the last Archbishop of St. Andrews. Opposed by John Knox, murdered by Protestant English reformers in the same year as he executed George Wishart.
Born in Edinburgh. Having emigrated to Canada and later the USA, Bell became the inventor of the telephone in 1876.
Invented the reaping machine which was a direct precursor of the modern combine harvester.
Physicist and Principal of St. Andrews (1838) and then Edinburgh University (1859). Invented the kaleidoscope.
Soldier and Astronomer, born in Largs, Ayrshire. Governor-General of the Australian state of New South-Wales. Set up an observatory and catalogued more than 7000 stars. The city of Brisbane (Australia) is named after him.
A founding father of Canada.
Explorer, born in Stirlingshire. Discovered the source of the Blue Nile in 1770. Was congratulated by the French, but the English did not believe him.
Crowned King of Scotland in 1306, he defeated the english king Edward II at Bannockburn in 1314. He is supposed to have been encouraged towards perseverance and eventual victory by watching a spider build a web in the cave in which he was hiding.
Architect. Proponent of the "Scottish Baronial" style of architecture, examples of his work include Fettes College and the (new) Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh and also more than 100 country houses.
Author, biographer and politician. Perhaps best known for "The Thirty-Nine Steps". Was also a member of parliament and Governor-General of Canada.
Poet and Writer. Amongst many other works he wrote "Auld Lang Syne" which is now sung world-wide at the end of functions and particularly at the end of the year. The Scots celebrate "Burn's Night" on the 25th January.
U.S. iron and steel magnate and great philanthropist. Born in Dunfermline, in Fife. Gave a considerable proportion of his fortune to the benefit of Scotland, including substantial educational endowments and 10,000 church organs.
The Tartan Pimpernell. Minister of the Scot's Kirk in Paris. During World War II he moved to Marseille where he arranged for British servicemen to escape from the Nazis to freedom. Eventually arrested, badly treated and sentenced to death. Released following the intervention of a German clergyman. He returned to the Scot's Kirk which was rebuilt following the war.
Dundee Inventor, Bookseller and Newspaper publisher. Invented the adhesive postage stamp, which made Rowland Hill's Penny Postal service a practical proposition.
Army surgeon who discovered that quinine bark acted as a cure for Malaria, a form of which was endemic in Britain at that time.
Invented hollow-pipe drainage. This innovation allowed the drying of water-logged land, bringing large areas into agricultural production.
Physicist and Chemist, born in Kincardine, Fife. Inventor of the vacuum flask.
Born near Glasgow, was the Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia. He insisted that the colonies should raise money for their own protection. Discovered George Washington's talents and sent him to resist the French. Thus he was an important figure in American History and has been called the "Grandfather of the United States".
Author. Creator of the detective Sherlock Holmes. He graduated from Edinburgh University in medicine and practised in Edinburgh, aboard ship and in the Boer War.
Inventor. Developed the pneumatic tyre which was to improve the comfort of cyclists and later motorists.
Discovered the world's first antibiotic drug - Penicillin.
Artist and illustrator, born in Edinburgh. His style was much imitated.
Inventor of the percussion cap. Fond of game shooting, he realised the major problem with the flint-lock gun was its unreliability in damp conditions. The percussion cap would ignite an enclosed charge when struck by a hammer. This was later developed into the modern bullet.
Inventor of the "Lost Wax" process of metal casting, used for reproducing delicate designs, especially in the jewellery trade.
An Edinburgh stall-holder, famous for a solitary act of defiance. She threw a stool at the Bishop in St. Giles in protest at the introduction of the much resented English prayerbook, which was regarded as Roman Catholic by Scottish Presbyterians. Her words were "Thou false thief; dost thou say Mass at ma lug?"
Born in Aberdeenshire, Glover went first to Shanghai in China and then to Nagasaki as the Japanese agent of the Jardine Matheson trading company. He was awarded the highest "Order of the Rising Sun" for his contribution to modernising Japan, through industrialisation and smuggling Japanese students abroad to gain a better education. He may have provided the model for Puccini's 1904 Opera "Madame Butterfly".
Inventor of the reflecting telescope, which was developed three years later by the Englishman Sir Isaac Newton.
Pioneer of Photography, also a Portrait and Landscape Painter.
Father of modern Geology. His theory of Uniformitarianism was the basis of the explanation of the geological history of the earth, which had it his words "no vestige of a beginning, no concept of an end". Published his "Theory of the Earth" in 1785.
Son of the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots, who had been brought up a Prestbyterian. In 1603, on the death of Queen Elizabeth I, he acceded to the English throne as James I. Although this "Union of the Crowns" resulted in James being King of both countries, the countries remained separate for another 104 years.
Born in Dumfriesshire, he joined the navy and spent time in Russia and France during the French Revolution. Most notably he established the U.S. Navy.
Mathematician and Physicist. Brought up in Scotland, although born in Ireland, he is perhaps best known for the absolute temperature scale which takes his name.
Naval Physician. Rediscovered the cure for scurvy (citrus fruits) and ensured the Admiralty systematically applied it.
A surgeon who pioneered the use of antiseptics and thereby dramatically reduced the number of post-opertive deaths due to infection.
Explorer and medical missionary. First white man to travel the length of Lake Tanganyika, discovered Victoria Falls and set out to discover the source of the Nile, but died before acheiving his aim. When Henry Stanley was sent to look for Livingstone, he uttered the famous greeting "Dr Livingstone, I presume".
Surveyor and builder of roads. Developed the process of "Macadamisation" which involves covering a road with small broken stones to form a hard surface. This led to tarmacadam (or tarmac), which is still used to cover roads today.
Known as "Concrete Bob", he as an entrepreneur built up a large building and civil engineering firm. McAlpine was also a pioneer in the use of concrete and labour-saving machinery. He left school at 10 to work in a coal mine, but went on to build roads and public buildings including Wembley Stadium in London.
Native of South Uist in the Outer Hebrides, she helped Bonnie Prince Charlie to safety following the failed rebellion of 1745. She later emigrated to North Carolina and was active recruiting Scots to fight for the British in the American War of Independence.
Inventor. Invented the bicycle, but never patented it and it was therefore widely copied.
Inventor and Entrepreneur. By applying naptha to rubber sheeting strengthened by cloth he invented the fabric for the rain-coat which bears his name.
Last Roman Catholic monarch of Scotland. Although remembered as a heroic figure, she was a poor ruler, lacking the political acumen of her sister Queen Elisabeth I of England. After religious disputes with John Knox and political intrigue involving her nobles, she was imprisoned and forced to abdicate in 1567 in favour of her son James VI. She was eventually executed for treason.
Mathematician and Physicist. Contributed significantly to electro-magnetism and prepared the way for quantum physics. Ranks along with Newton and Einstein as one of the World's greatest physicists.
Inventor of the threshing machine.
Naturalist and Conservationist, born in Dunbar. John Muir was the founder of the U.S. National Park system and is regarded as the father of the modern environmental movement.
Anatomist and Professor of Surgery at the University of Edinburgh. Founder of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and established Edinburgh as a major centre of medical teaching and research.
Mathematician. First developed the concept of logarithms.
Invented the hot blast oven, which was a great advance in the iron industry.
The Patron Saint of Ireland. He is said to have been born near Kirkpatrick on the River Clyde. Went to Ireland in 432.
Educated at Edinburgh University, he took classes given by Dugald Stewart and Joseph Black. As headmaster of the Old High School of Edinburgh, he was an early advocate of compulsory education. Later (1820-1863) he became Professor of Humanity & Laws in the University of Edinburgh. He invented the blackboard and coloured chalks and used them to teach Geography.
Born in Glamis Castle as Lady Elisabeth Bowes-Lyon, she married HRH the Duke of York in 1923, who became King George VI, on the abdication of his brother Edward VIII.
Engineer, born in Phantassie, East Lothian. Began his career in agricultural land improvement. Went on to build docks from Wick to Torquay, including the London and East India docks. Also in London, the Southwark, Waterloo and London Bridges (the latter is now re-erected in Arizona). Buried in St. Paul's Cathedral.
Great Scottish patriot, writer and poet. Educated at the Old High School in Edinburgh, he then studied Law at the University of Edinburgh and became an advocate. He did much towards identifying and nurturing a Scottish cultural identity. His literary works include the Waverley Novels, but also he was a translator, biographer (of Napoleon) and passionate collector of all things Scottish. He was buried in the ruins of Dryburgh Abbey.
Football manager who built the English team of Liverpool into a world-beating side, ensuring success long after his departure.
Born in Edinburgh, educated at the High School and Edinburgh University. Established the first botanical garden in the city. Founded the Royal College of Physicians. Was also Cartographer-Royal for Scotland writing books on the topography of Fife and Stirlingshire.
Pioneer in the use of anaesthetics. Also pioneered obstetric techniques and responsible for much reform of hospital practice.
A Dundee mill girl who became a great missionary in West Africa. Called 'Great Mother' by Nigerians, she provided healthcare and education and stamped out barbaric tribal practices such as human sacrifice.
Printer. Published the first edition of the "Encylopaedia Britannica" (1768) and the Edinburgh edition of Robert Burns' Poems (1787). He also prepared the ground for the publication of the first Statistical Account of Scotland.
Born in Thurso, Caithness. Founded the "Boy's Brigade in 1883".
The "Young Pretender", grandson of James VII of Scotland (James II of England), who was exiled by William of Orange. The french-backed Jacobite Rebellion of 1745 was intended to restore him to the throne, but ended in disarray and bloody defeat at Culloden (in 1746). He escaped to France with the help of Flora MacDonald and lived comfortably in exile. He died, despondent and a drunk, and is buried in St. Peter's, Rome.
Explorer of Australia. First to cross Australia from South to North. Mount Stuart is named after him.
Outlaw and defender of Scottish independence. Defeated the army of Edward I at the Battle of Stirling Bridge. Shortly after Wallace's execution, Robert the Bruce was able to re-establish Scotland's independence.
Physicist, born in Brechin. Developed and introduced RADAR during World War II.
Developed the steam engine into a practical source of power and invented the governor as a control device.
Chemical Engineer. Developed the process of refining oil and created the world's first oil industry based on the Oil Shales of West Lothian, close to Edinburgh.