1938 in Scotland

Events

27 April – Second Division team East Fife F.C. uniquely win the Scottish Cup in Association football.^[1]
3 May – Empire Exhibition opens in Glasgow.^[2]
30 July – The Beano comic, published by D. C. Thomson & Co. of Dundee, goes on sale across the U.K.^[3]
27 September – RMS Queen Elizabeth is launched at Clydebank; she is the largest ship in the world at this time.
Iona Community established by Rev. George MacLeod in Glasgow.
English landowner David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale, buys the island of Inch Kenneth.
The Hermitage of Braid estate, adjacent to Blackford Hill, is gifted to the city of Edinburgh for recreational purposes by John McDougal.
The Neolithic settlement of Rinyo on Rousay in Orkney is excavated by V. Gordon Childe.
Broughton Place at Broughton in the Borders is built in the style of a traditional tower house by Basil Spence incorporating decorative reliefs by Hew Lorimer.^[4]
Turner & Newall establish an asbestos cement plant at Dalmuir.
Agnes Mure Mackenzie publishes The Foundations of Scotland, the first of a 6-volume history.

2 January – Ian Brady, born Ian Duncan Stewart, serial killer (died 2017 in Ashworth Hospital)
16 February – Willie Hamilton, footballer (died 1976 in Canada)
7 March – Alan Cousin, footballer (died 2016)
31 March
- Ian Gray, comics scriptwriter (died 2007)
- David Steel, UK Liberal Member of Parliament and Liberal Democrat leader and 1st Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament
16 April – Gordon Wilson, Scottish National Party leader (died 2017)
5 June – Moira Anderson, singer
18 June – Michael Sheard, character actor (died 2005)
27 June – David Hope, judge
7 June – Ian St John, footballer and manager (died 2021 in England)
28 July – Ian McCaskill, weatherman (died 2016)
13 September – John Smith, UK Labour Party leader (died 1994 in London)
14 September – Nicol Williamson, actor (died 2011)
20 October – Iain Macmillan, photographer (died 2006)^[5]
22 October – Alan Gilzean, footballer (died 2018)
25 November – Maria Fyfe, née O'Neill, politician (died 2020)
28 November – Frank Haffey, goalkeeper
16 December – Neil Connery, actor, younger brother of Sean Connery (died 2021)
John Paisley, actor, working in China
Roland Poska, graphic artist (died 2017 in the United States)

Incumbents