Clan Tartans
The Origin of Clan Tartans
by James
Scarlett MBE
There has long been controversy, often heated and frequently
acrimonious, as to when, sometimes exactly when, "clan" tartans
began to be used. Some have held that the 'Scots' emerged from the
primeval mists wearing their identifying tartans, others that Sir
Walter Scott started it, and there have even been a few who would
lay it at the door of Queen Victoria's Prince Consort, Albert.
There is little logic in any of these opinions. An organised
system cannot exist without organised communities and uniform
tartans require both technology to make them and mass-production to
encourage them; they are therefore unlikely to have come into being
until weaving had become a specialised trade in its own right. It
is doubtful if even the wizardry of Sir Walter could have conjured
up the complete Clan Tartan System and all that goes with it, more
or less overnight and, while Queen Victoria did a great deal
towards founding the romantic reputation of the Highlands - which
still endures - it has to be said that the beginning of the Clan
Tartan Idea came before her time.
It has to be remembered that, in the present context, tartan is
Highland and that the Lowlands did not adopt it in the 'family'
sense, to any large extent, until the mid-eighteenth century, when
the Lowland tartan industry had begun to grow up as a result of the
1747 Act which sought to abolish tartan altogether. My recent
research into military tartans suggests strongly that the blue,
black and green tartans owe their existence to military fashion or
even War Department ruling: this is not to say that all such
tartans are military ones but that the army started the idea. The
other class of dark tartans, those known as 'hunting', almost
certainly derive jointly from a rather obscure statement by George
Buchanan (see the right hand column) and the strident colours of
the early synthetic dyes. A third class, many-hued, comprises the
Sobieski confections, which are either inventions or minor
modifications of established tartans of their time.
Laying these three classes aside as being late, standing out
from what remain are three variations on a theme in red, green and
dark blue, each with its own geographical affinity. Naming them by
the clans who use the simplest versions, they are, in the West the
Macdonald type which has a broad green stripe with a narrower blue
one on each side, in the central Highlands, running from
Strathglass in the north well into Perthshire, the Mackintosh type
in which green stripe is divided by a wide central red stripe, and
north of the Great Glen the Ross type in which the green and blue
elements are in separate blocks.
However, there are some exceptions: Stuarts of Appin and
MacDonells of Keppoch are associated with tartans of the Mackintosh
type; the now-forgotten MacPherson of Cluny's tartan, listed by
Wilsons'before the end of the 18th century, Loch Eil Tartan,
another early listing by Wilsons', which I think was probably worn
by Locheil's men in The '45, and one associated with the Fraser
contingent at Culloden are also of the pageType, giving a
distinctly Jacobite undertone to the pattern.
The Jacobite Army in The '45 was organised in Clan regiments and
in such a long and mobile campaign some re-equipment must have been
necessary so, however the men may have been dressed at the outset,
it is probable that a considerable degree of uniformity must have
ensued which resulted in clan regiments eventually wearing uniform
tartans that became Clan Tartans by a natural process. Whatever
inferences enthusiastic protagonists may draw from the totally
inadequate evidence, there is no clear reference to the use of
tartan in the 'clan' context before The' 45 and the Clan Tartan
Idea made rapid progress very soon after. There seems to be a
strong probability that the Clan tartans are a direct legacy of the
last Jacobite Rising.
When large numbers of prisoners were taken, groups of them
wearing the same tartan and the individual groups wearing
recognisably similar tartans it would have been hard for the
responsible Government authorities to avoid seeing in tartan a
badge of underground armies. A ban on tartan in disaffected areas
would be a natural outcome and can be seen as a precaution against
a future outbreak rather than as some kind of punishment or a
deliberate attempt to destroy the people.
J.S. 3rd May 2002