The history of Scottish tartans

Answer 1

Celtic tribes were wearing check and stripes patters for thousands of years but the earliest record of checked cloth in Scotland was the Falkirk tartan dating to the 3rd century, the first written record in Scotland dates from the 16th century and the first pictorial evidence of what we would recognise as "modern" tartan turned up in the 17th century (Scottish mercenaries in Germany wearing tartan).

Tartans were not specially tied into clans in older times there were more tied into districts or areas. Several clans might wear the same tartan or pattern derived from the local weavers, the patterns dependant on what was locally available as dyes from the coasts to inland moors and it was sometimes impossible to discern the clans in battle as there was no uniformity. Even when the chiefs tried to make the clans more uniform they were often ignored by their own immediate family (no change there then), people wore what they liked sometimes several different tartans. Distinguishing friend or foe in battle was a matter of wearing a sign - ribbon/cloth/sprig usually in the bonnet to distinguish one side from another. This continued up to the battle of Culloden where Highlanders were on both sides:- ("Hold your Hand, I'm a Cambell. On which I asked him,Where's your Bonnet ? He reply'd, Somebody have snatched it off my Head. I only mention this to shew how we distinguished our loyal Clans from the Rebels ; they being dress'd and equip'd all in one Way, except the Bonnet ; ours having a red or yellow Cross of Cloath or Ribbon ; theirs a white Cockade" quoted from one of the letters of a Highland officer at Culloden as he pursued the Jacobites).

Culloden marked the turning point though for Tartan in Scotland. The Act of Proscription introduced in 1747 banned the wearing of the kilt and tartan in the Highlands except for the gentry and the army. As highland weavers disappeared and basic machinery was destroyed enterprising manufacturers set up shop just outside in the Lowlands to cater for the army contracts and the civilian demand from landed gentry, those living in the Lowlands and those abroad. Wilsons of Bannockburn was the most well known. Set up with modern machinery in 1760 they started to produce regimental tartans and popular district tartans. They were either named after the area or in many cases just numbered, these numbers were gradually superseded by names of the largest buyers or where they were mostly bought from. The first lists only numbered about a hundred tartans. The Act of Proscription was repealed in 1782 but it wasn't until two events in the early 19th century that things changed radically. The Highland Society of London collected as many tartans as they could find and asked the Clan chiefs to identify theirs. This sent many a chief of to the older members of the Clan for guidance or in one famous case to Wilsons. The Clan Chief of the MacPherson wrote to Wilsons for help. They couldn't find a MacPherson tartan but found No 43 also known as Kidd as this was the name of the man first to buy it. However a Mr. MacPherson of the West Indies had ordered such a tartan so they duly renamed it and sent the sample to London. It remains to this day the standard MacPherson tartan (although they have added others since). A number of old pictures of Clan Chiefs have emerged over the years depicting them in an other clan's tartan showing the problem in narrowing down a single tartan to a single clan historically. The Chief of the MacDonald's wrote back to the society "Being really ignorant of what is exactly The Macdonald Tartan, I request you will have the goodness to exert every Means in your power to Obtain a perfectly genuine Pattern, Such as Will Warrant me in Authenticating it with my Arms."In the same era a merchant wrote "Please send me a piece of Ross tartan, and if there isn't one, please send me a different pattern and call it Ross."

By 1819 Wilson's Key Pattern book contained 200 patterns. The second major event was the pageant of 1822 for the visit of King George IV to Edinburgh arranged mainly by Sir Walter Scott (romanticist, novelist and myth maker) who persuaded a number of Clan Chiefs to appear and the King himself in tartan. Tartan grew in popularity from here enormously even being adopted by Lowlanders and has come to represent Scotland as national dress and many tartans were invented in this era. The "Sobeiski Stuarts" and various Tartan books published in the aftermath all added to the impetus. It was later helped along the way by another royal Queen Victoria whose husband invented a Balmoral tartan and had it made into a carpet and wall coverings!

Today: The industry grows exponentially as shown by the numbers from hundreds at the turn of the 19th century to thousands today. Even the Irish (who had virtually no tartan recorded and wore the Leine* not the kilt) are now served by the Scottish Tartan industry. With a small number of exceptions they are the colours of the Irish Counties and Provinces fed into traditional Scottish tartan patterns. Pop your name into a database and if it doesn't have a clan tartan they will turn up a district connection which will then churn out a district tartan. Almost full circle for the history of how tartan was worn originally but in this case the tartan almost nearly all invented in the 1990s. So as a Celtic descendant if you want to trace your name through the various spellings and find yourself a tartan you can, it will bring a sense of belonging and connect you to others of a now extended Clan. However don't think your ancestors strode through the Highlands wearing this stuff, the modern "little kilt" (phillabeg/feilidh-beag - as opposed to the Great Kilt/Feliidh mhor) is also a "modern" adaption the first sewn pleated kilt only appearing in 1792 although that's another story..........