PANEL 59    The Kilt

Scottish weddings and other formal occasions now resemble a Highland Games. Within a generation, kilts – and, indeed, full tartan fig – have become de rigeur for grooms, best men and most guests. Fifty years ago Lowlanders would not have been seen dead in a kilt. The origins of all of this Highland splendour are, of course, disputed. The big kilt or plaid – a term used, confusingly, by Americans for tartan – was worn as a kilt in the modern sense but was also big enough to act as a cloak, hood or even a blanket. All was kept decent by a belt and the word kilt appears to derive from tucking in or kilting up a plaid round the waist. Many hypotheses have been advanced for the shrinking of the big kilt to the modern, small kilt. But the most likely, certainly the most entertaining, was that it was invented by an Englishman. Thomas Rawlinson was a Quaker from Lancashire who ran a charcoal burning and foundry business in Lochaber in the 1720s. Noticing that the big kilt encumbered his foresters as they felled trees and his foundry men as they smelted iron, he promoted the wearing of the small kilt. It was probably a natural development encouraged by the Englishman because illustrations of men wearing a version have been found to predate the 1720s. What was worn under the kilt remains a secret but occasionally, when Highlanders fought in hot weather, they cast off their plaids and charged in their shirts. All was on resplendent show at Blar na Leinne, the Field of the Shirts, a clan battle between Frasers and McDonalds near Fort William in the summer of 1544. It is not known how long the shirts were.

 

Panel stitched by:

Smailholm Group

Isabel Atkinson

Avril Blown

Fiona Brown

Denise Hunter

Derrick Jowett

Robyn Kinsman Blake

Susan Mason

Veronica Ross

Sally Scott Aiton

Margaret Shaw

Margaret Skea

Catherine Tees

Stitched in:

Smailholm, Gordon