by Charles MacKinnon of Dunakin

Every year the general interest in tartans increases and so does the number of tartans. Once the tartans were specifically associated with the Highland clans of Scotland, although for a long time a number of the great Lowland Houses, both in the north-east and southern Scotland, have had tartans of their own. In addition to this there have been district and general tartans from the earliest times. Indeed the earliest tartans almost certainly were, or became, Highland district tartans.

Although, therefore, the public still tends to think of tartan as something essentially Highland, there are now in fact four distinct main types of tartan - clan, Lowland and family, general and universal, and district.

Before considering these tartans it is as well to clear up two points. The first is the definition of a Highland clan. A Highland clan is a special group of an aggregate of distinct families each professing descent from a common ancestor, all bound in loyalty to a chief who is the genealogical representer of that common ancestor who founded or is said to have founded the clan. These clans had their lands in the Highlands. The main distinction between the Highland clans and the great Lowland Houses is that the Highlanders generally believed their chief was their kinsman. The sense of kinship to the chief and the chief’s patriarchal rule were the hallmarks, and they are not generally noticeable in the Lowland Houses. Nevertheless in an Act of Parliament in 1587 Border “clams” are specifically mentioned. The Border clans, however, apparently did not wear tartan. Sir Walter Scott asserts that tartan was never worn in the southern counties till the Act of Union of 1707 when it was worn in protest, and that even then it had no clan or family significance to the Borderers. Nevertheless we see that as early as 1707 it was assuming the character of being Scottish rather than merely Highland.

The second point is that few of the tartans pf today bear any resemblance to the tartans prior to 1746 so far as we can ascertain from portraits or specimens. This fact is often made much of, but it is not really important. There is no reason to assume that tartans would or should have remained static. In any case, a clan chief whose tartan was lost during the thirty-six years of proscription was quite entitled to assume a new tartan as his clan tartan.

The earliest list of tartans which survives today, if we except the Vestiarium Scoticum [which some argue was a forgery], is the Key Pattern Book of William Wilson and Sons, Bannockburn, compiled in 1819. In it fifty-five tartans are listed, thirty of them being Highland clan tartans, thirteen family tartans, and twelve district or general tartans. The Highland clan tartans were:

Campbell (Argyll and Breadalbane tartans are both listed), Chisholm, Cameron, Colquhoun, Drummond, Farquharson, Forbes, Fraser, Gordon, Grant, Logan, MacDonald, Donald of Staffa (a MacDonald tartan), MacDougall, MacDuff, MacFarlane, MacGregor, Murray, Rob Roy (a MacGregory tartan), MacIntosh, MacKay, MacKinnon, MacLauchlan, MacLean (two tartans are listed), McNeill, Menzies, Robertson, Ross, Stewart.

The family tartans listed were:

Abercrombie, Baillie, Birral, Bruce, Coburg, Gallowater, Hunter, Kidd, Kinnoull (may be a district tartan), Lasting, Rich, Waggrall, Wilson.

The district and general tartans were:

Aberdeen, Atholl, Blanket, Border, Caledonia, Caledonian, Crieff, Dundee, Fort William, Leith (may be a family tartan), Lochaber, Perth.

These tartans were in existence and must also have been in demand in 1819, three years before George IV’s State Visit to Edinburgh in 1822. The inference is that they had been in existence at least several years earlier, for it is known that Wilson and Sons made other tartans, not apparently popular enough to go into their Key Pattern Book.

In 1831 James Logan’s book The Scottish Gael was published, containing a list of fifty-four tartans including Breacan na’n Clerach, or Clergy tartan, the only tartan associated with a specific profession. In addition to repeating twenty-seven of Wilson’s Highland clan setts, tartans are given for the following Highland clans:

Buchanan, Cumming, Ferguson, Graham (not strictly Highland), Gunn, Hay, Lamont, MacAlastair, MacAulay, MacPherson, MacQuarrie, Munro, Murray, Ogilvie, Rose, Sinclair, Sutherland, Urquhart.

He also gives two family tartans, Abercrombie and Dalzel, and one Lowland tartan, Douglas.

If we jump now to the list of clans and tartans in Tartans of the Clans and Families of Scotland by Sir Thomas Innes of Learney, [the late] Lord Lyon King of Arms, we get twenty-six more Highland clan tartans, and twenty-two lowland and family tartans, as follows:

Anderson (sept of Clan Chattan), Barclay, Brodie, Carnegie, Clan Chattan (a confederation of clans), Davidson, Henderson, Innes, Keith, Leslie, MacArthur, MacCallum (Malcolm), MacEwen, MacFie (MacPhee), MacInnes, MacIntyre, MacKinlay, MacLaren, MacMillan, MacQueen, MacRae, Mathieson, Morrison, Nicholson, Sinclair, Skene.

The Lowland tartans he listed are:

Armstrong, Crawford, Cunningham, Dunbar, Dundas, Elliot, Erskine, Hamilton, Home, Johnston, Kennedy, Kerr, Lindsay, Livingstone, Maxwell, Montgomery, Ramsay, Ruthven, Scott, Seton, Wallace, Wemyss.

Furthermore, he mentions a district tartan, Strathearn, and a general tartan, Jacobite.

If we add this up we will find a list of seventy-nine Highland clan tartans (representing seventy-four distinct Highland clans), thirty eight Lowland and family tartans, nine district tartans and five general tartans, plus Clergy tartan - a total of one hundred and thirty-two tartans.

This of course excludes all the many branches of clans which have their own tartans now - MacDonalds, Campbells and Stewarts, for instance, are split into many distinct branch clans - and takes no account of dress tartans, hunting tartans, chief’s personal setts, and purely military tartans such as Cameron of Erracht. Also there are different versions of the tartans mentioned, early writers not always agreeing exactly with each other as to what was the proper sett. The hundred and thirty-two tartans we have considered here by name can be doubled at least in their variations. The latest figure I have seen [in 1962] states that over six hundred tartans are now known by name, which is a staggering number. In The Setts of the Scottish Tartan, by D.C.Stewart, two hundred and sixty-one are described in detail.

Nowadays tartans are being registered by the Lord Lyon King of Arms, and when so registered (on the application of the chef du nom), they become protected in law in a similar way to arms themselves. It is an offence to sell and incorrect version of a registered tartan as “X” tartan. (It is not, of course, an offence to sell it simply as an undesignated tartan). A case in point is the bogus hunting MacKinnon tartan, which is now flooding the market in the form of tartan skirts, tartan jeans and even tartan bonnets. It is, in the writer’s opinion, an improvement on the original, but it is not hunting MacKinnon (which is a registered tartan), and it is therefore illegal to offer it in Scotland under than name.

Some of the tartans recorded with the Lord Lyon do not yet appear in popular lists. For example, the editor’s tartan - Gayre - has only just come to be mentioned in Robert Bain’s The Clans and Tartans of Scotland, which is, perhaps, one of the most popular books on the subject.

The number of “genuine” clan tartans is therefore not fixed, but it is increasing both with the revival and reintroduction of old tartans, and the designing of new ones. This is as it should be, and is part of the general development of the clan system which. Being a living system of great antiquity has never ceased to develop and to adapt itself to the times.

We have obviously come a long way from clan tartans and the reason is obvious. Tartans and Highland dress are today regarded as the emblems not of the Highlands alone but of all Scotland. When we find Smith tartan being advertised, as we do now, it is clear that the great band of Scottish Smiths have joined the ranks of those who claim to be “entitled” to a tartan of their own. Why not? They were never a clan, but if Kidds and Coburgs can have their tartans, why not Smiths?

The sad fact - it is sad to purists, anyway - is that a man in a kilt is no longer of necessity a Highlander. He is a Scotsman who is proud of Highland dress and possibly also realises what a comfortable and smart dress it is when worn properly. It is better by far for Mr.Smith to wear Smith tartan than to wear, say, MacLean tartan, whereas he is a Smith.

What is interesting historically is that less that thirty-seven years (and perhaps much less) after the Act of 1782 repealing the proscription of Highland dress and tartan, thirty Highland clans at least had acquired clan tartans. To be sure, probably not the tartans their ancestors wore, but clan tartans just the same.

Equally interesting is the fact that roughly half of the present day tartans are not associated at all with Highland clans. I have mentioned already that the purists may feel sad about this. Certainly the Highlander of today who meets in his glen an overseas tourist uncomfortably wearing a kilt which is too long and a tartan to which he has only the flimsiest of pretensions - which pretensions he asserts whenever given the opportunity - may be moved to laughter or tears. The fact is, however, that it is the very popularity of tartans and highland dress outside the Highlands that has preserved them in daily use today. The purist may be sad, but how much sadder would he be if the tartans had never become popular outside their birthplace and so had degenerated into a quaint folk costume seldom if ever seen.

There are a lot of abuses, most of them unnecessary, but on the whole the tartans are here to stay, and they each have their separate significance as well as now being collectively symbolic of the ancient Kingdom of Scotland.

The compliment to the Highlanders is enormous!

This article first appeared in a then quarterly journal, The Armorial, in November 1962, vol.III, no.4.
It was selected and retyped by Gregory Lauder-Frost.