The Scottish Tartans Museum * 86 East Main St, Franklin NC 28723 * (828)524-7472 * tartans@scottishtartans.org

     During the nineteenth century is when many of the things we consider "traditional" about Highland dress came into being.  First and foremost among these is the notion that tartans belong to clans or families.  This idea first began in the eighteenth century, when Industrialization came to Scotland.  The first commercial, industrial weaver of tartan material was a lowland man, William Wilson.  His firm, William Wilson and Sons of Bannockburn, supplied tartan material to the Highland regiments beginning in the late eighteenth century.  He was weaving on large industrial machines, capable of producing the exact same pattern of tartan for thousands of yards.  At first, these patterns were assigned numbers, but very soon Wilson began to name them after clans, local towns, regions, etc.  His pattern book from 1819 supplies us with some of the earliest thread counts for clan tartans that we have.  At the turn of the nineteenth century we know of about 90 tartans with names.
     People in the Highlands who had worn kilts all their lives paid no heed to these names.  They were simply a way of calling the tartan.  A MacInnes would have no qualms about wearing a MacDonald tartan if it was the colours that he liked.  However, in the Victorian era, Highland dress became very popular outside of the Highlands as well.

Due largely to the writings of people like Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott, Scotland became a romantic vision.  Lowlanders adopted the Highland dress as a way of identifying themselves as non-English.  The English nobility fell in love with the kilt.  Queen Victoria had her own Highland Servant, Mr. Brown, who wore his kilt every day.  King George, in his 1822 visit to Edinburgh, insisted that all visiting chiefs wear their clan tartan and he had an outfit (with flesh coloured hose) made special for him to wear.  Scots expatriates the world over began to wear the kilt in remembrance of their homeland and form St. Andrew's clubs and Highland Societies.  These people, unfamiliar with the history of the kilt, assumed that they must wear the tartan that bore their name, or the name of their clan.  This boosted tartan sales, so the weavers didn't mind.  Books were written placing certain Scottish names in Highland clans, assigning them this tartan or that.  So began the myth that the clans of old all wore identical tartans as their identifying badge.  Pieces of Wilson's tartan can be seen framed behind these Victorian outfits.  The children are wearing formal wear such that might be seen at Tartan balls even yet today.

These pictures, one of a MacGregor, and one of a MacDonell, show how tartan fashion had advanced.  The MacGregor, c. 1822, shows a matching tartan outfit, in the same tartan as worn by the MacGregor clan today.  The MacDonell of 1815 also is dressed in a matching tartan, but it does not match up with any known MacDonald tartan today. It does illustrate the start of yet another trend, however.  Tucked in his stocking is a small knife, a sgian dubh, Gaelic for "black knife."  This is the first known illustration of this fashion.  It most likely evolved from a matched pair of hunting knives--a large dirk for butchering and a small sgian dubh for skinning.  The sgian would be tucked into the top of the hose for convenience.  It was not intended to be a hidden weapon or a "last resort" weapon as many say today, but a functional tool.