1880
Shetlopedia - The Shetland Encyclopaedia
- c.1880 Up Helly-Aa begins to take on its modern guise
- Lerwick Boating Club established.
- George Meldrum active as an early Mormon missionary.
March
- 1st or 3rd
The Pioneer, a smack, laden with a mixed cargo, wrecked between Duncansclett and Banna Minn, Burra. All of the crew were saved.
April
- 15th
The George Washington (1880), a schooner laden with coal, of Tonsberg, Norway from Charlestown to Memel, Prussia (now Klaipėda, Lithuania) was abandoned by her crew off Lerwick after taking on a significant amount of water.
May
- 26th
Shetland fishing smack Spell lost with all 14 hands at Rockall fishing grounds.
July
- 13th
Boddam School opened.
September
- 6th
The Erin, an unregistered wooden hulled sail smack, from Voe, Dunrossness and for Lerwick, foundered off the Laward at the entrance to Grutness Voe. Both souls aboard perished.
October
- Virkie School opened.
- 10th
The Mary (1880), a fishing lugger, of Fetlar, from Lerwick, struck wreckage and foundered between Yell and Fetlar. Four crew and one passenger were lost. - 30th
- The Dolores, a wooden hulled sail schooner laden with a cargo of fish and fish oil, of Runcorn, Cheshire, England, from Voe and for Liverpool, England via Glasgow, Scotland, wrecked in West Burrafirth during NW Force 10 wind conditions. The crew saved themselves in the ship's boat.
- An unidentified barque was observed with mizzen mast gone and flying a distress signals off Papa Stour. Knowledge of this vessel's existence and condition is understood to rely on a report by Captain Sinnot of the schooner Dolores (see above), who went on to claim that she appeared to be stationary. No trace of this unidentified barque could be found the next day, and it was presumed she wrecked on the Ve Skerries. While there have never been any known grounds to question Captain Sinnot's report, it is probably worth noting that his vessel wrecked at West Burrafirth on the same day, and it cannot be discounted that the accuracy of his report possibly may have been compromised by his own ordeal.
November
- 2nd
Election of the Lerwick Town Council. - 25th
By-election of the Lerwick Town Council.
