From
Proscription to the Romantic Period
From 1746 until 1782, there were laws with severe penalties for the wearing
of Highland Dress unless in military service in a highland regiment or a member
of the gentry loyal to the Hanovarian cause. This period therefore saw the development
of the Military or Regimental Tartans, possibly based on previous designs but
generally derived from the Black Watch or government tartan..
William Wilson and Sons
The main supplier of military tartan was William Wilson and Sons, and
they became the first commercial weavers around 1770, having a virtual monopoly.
It is in their pattern books of 1819 and 1847 that many of today's tartan patterns,
in their earliest known form, came to be recorded.
After proscription, "true" patterns were sought amongst the surviving handloom
producers and woven samples. The naming of these could involve a clan or district
name, but was often a customer's name, a weaver's name or other quirky alternative.
The Cockburn Collection
One of the earliest collections of tartan from this period is the Cockburn
Collection, housed in the Mitchell Library in Glasgow. It was collected by General
Sir William Cockburn between 1810 and 1820, and probably woven by Wilson's for
the general, and have remained intact where almost all of Wilson's output was
thrown out long ago, leaving only the pattern books.
The Highland Society of London
The Highland Society of London was a club for gentry having highland
connections, and it became an important institution for preserving tartans,
partly through the mistaken conception that there had been "named Highland clan
tartans".
From 1815, efforts were made to obtain authentic clan designs, signed and sealed
by Clan Chiefs, of their clan tartans. Whilst many clan chiefs had to find a
tartan for the purpose, within a year 74 specimens had been found and the process
continued although the samples have sometimes been damaged by moth, separated
from their authentication and remain unpublished to this day.
The Visit of George IV
In 1822, George IV became the first British monarch to visit Scotland
since Charles II in 1660. Sir Walter Scott, a major preserver of Scottish identity,
had suggested "Let every man wear his tartan", which caused a very practical
and hasty search to identify and manufacture patterns for every name. Some Chiefs
created quite a show and the whole event a recognition of uniquely Scottish
cultural forms.
James Logan
The Highland Society subsidised an important piece of independent research
leading after five years research to the publication of James Logan's book The
Scottish Gael or Celtic Manners, as Preserved among the Highlanders (1831).
Whilst Logan had been on the tartan trail in the Highlands, he requested tartans
with clan and family names from Wilson's and used many of the Highland Society
specimens. The work has become the best finished recording of Highland clan
tartans.
Robert Ranald MacIan
MacIan
was an artist who tried to capture the feeling of Highland Dress as worn, portraying
tartan patterns on the garments. He collaborated with his friend and colleague,
James Logan, who wrote a significant text to accompany each illustration published
in 1845 and 1847. Some new tartans appeared in the work and have become established
designs. The book, called The Clans of the Scottish Highlands is interesting
as the first clan encyclopaedia, attempting to collect historic, heraldic and
tartan information.
Vestiarium Scoticum
In this 1842 book (in English, not Latin) the boundaries between artistic
fantasy and provable historical fact were successfully blurred as the Celtic
revival became fashionable. The authors were the Sobrieski Stuart brothers who
claimed descent from Bonnie Prince Charlie and access to version
of a 16th century manuscript describing tartan patterns.
The brothers gained entry to the social circles of Scottish gentry in London
and the Highland chiefs in Scotland, especially through offering tartan patterns
for a "name". They evidently loved the subject, producing many good patterns
that had traditional elements though some tired variations on established patterns.
Whilst neither their pedigree nor their document have been accepted, many of
their tartans live on as successful patterns.
Victoria and Albert
In 1942 Queen Victoria spent her honeymoon with Prince Albert in Scotland,
and her reign was to give considerable patronage to "things Scottish" and tartan
in particular. Her court became active in developing new royal tartans, decorating
Balmoral with tartan, attending Highland Games and so on. She became the over-arching
context for the developing need to record tartans, especially within the enlarged
concept of clan.
W & A Smith
In 1850, William & Andrew Smith published Authenticated Tartans of
the Clans and Families of Scotland and this completed half a century of basic
recording. This and previous books satisfied much of the emerging Victorian
market.
Later Books
In 1886, James Grant usefully published a work based upon samples of
tartan then in use, called The Tartans and Clans of Scotland. The first
recording of the excellent "Hunting Stewart" pattern appeared in it.
This was followed up by D.W. Stewart's Old and Rare Scottish Tartans,
focusing on the more historically authentic designs and using beautiful silk
weaves as illustrations, overcoming the difficulty of printing tartans in books.
Only 300 copies were made, making it rare itself.
D.W. Stewart represents a line of tartan research that continued into the 20th
century, handed down to his son Donald (D.C.) Stewart and contributing to the
creation in 1963 of the Scottish Tartans Society.
The
Modern Recording of Tartan
The start of the 20th century saw the first definitive clan tartan
lists in books, devoted primarily to clans and their tartans.
Books on Clans
Based upon an earlier work by Whyte, the Tartans of the Clans and
Septs of Scotland by W and A K Johnston emerged in 1906, with contributions
from a number of authors, to join the swelling ranks of handbooks to Scottish
Clans. The colour illustrations remained a problem, as also were the inevitable
errors and differences that different lists might include. In 1908 Frank Adams
launched his Clans, Septs and Regiments of the Scottish Highlands, a
work that, with a James Logan tartan list, lived on into the 1960s.
New Tartans
The concerns of the previous century had created many recordings of
tartan patterns and whilst new lists were printed from time to time, the growth
area was new tartan designs that used the power of the modern woven cloth to
create very attractive designs for garments and other goods.
The Lyon's Office
The Lord Lyon, King of Arms, regulates Heraldry in Scotland. Sir Thomas
of Learney, the Lord Lyon, published The Tartans of the Clans and Families
of Scotland in 1938. By this time, the heraldry of the Scottish Chiefs was
controlled by statute and a number of clan and family tartans became officially
recognised in the Lyon's Court Book, and this was a useful way to "register"
new clan tartans, though it was not a tartan register. Sir Thomas therefore
encouraged incorporating The Scottish Tartans Society with the
specific aim that a proper register be established.
Since
the Lord Lyon maintains the Public Register or All Arms and Bearings in Scotland,
authorised by parliament since 1592, then the new Register adopted a similar
title The Register of All Publicly Known Tartans, though without any
statutory authority. The Society's arms were granted to include three tenterhooks
for hanging cloth and a woven diminutive based on the saltire.
The Mechanics of Recording
The basic recording of tartan is the thread count which allows manufacture,
but without a sample that definitely existed a thread count cannot really be
registered. Thus it was realised that a register of tartans would have to be
sample based and the samples preserved and accessible.
Index Cards
A Register of all tartan patterns must hold thousands of designs, and
the only way to cross check patterns for similarities of pattern or name before
computers was a card index system. A system, called Sindex, was developed to
compare the two pivot points of a pattern, where the first three colours were
coded so that any tartan with the same pivot colours could be identified easily.
The cards became known as Sindex Cards, which recorded a thread count,
Sindex Code, Tartan Name and any other notes.
Colour Strips
For some time, a simple way of recording tartan had been to draw the
bands of colour onto paper held next to the cloth. A tailor's son from Stirling
has become known for his MacKinlay Strips and, these colour strips also adorn
the sindex cards, allowing the pattern to be viewed from the top of a deck of
cards in the drawer.
Tartans
on Computer
The popularity of the personal computer led to exercises by the Society in
programs to draw tartan on-screen, first at Stirling University and then in
its own research program to convert sindex cards to data base records.
However, it is only in 1998 that the computer rather than the sindex card has
become the fuller and more living recorder of tartan information. A research
version of the Tartans Explorer program is used to maintain the register, publish
it to the web and create data for the publicly available version.
The Register is maintained at offices in Pitlochry, Perthshire, where a large
paper archive, samples, library and other whole collections are available to
support its operation. Members of the Society and qualified researchers can
arrange use of these resources.
Source: Tartans of Scotland.
The official register of all publically known tartans.
Used with permission.
Copyright © Tartans of Scotland
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