Is the Kilt an English invention?

Is the Kilt an English Invention?

originally published in The Scottish Banner, April 2008

The kilt is recognized universally as the Scottish national garment; yet there have been some to suggest that the kilt, in its modern form, is not Scottish at all, but rather English. I expect that my gentle readers will now be raising an eyebrow in skepticism. The kilt, an English garment? Who would believe such a thing?

There is historic precedent for those who make this claim. In fairness, let us look at their argument and see what can be made of it. Those who like to claim an English origin for the kilt invariably mention the Rawlinson story from the early eighteenth century. Thomas Rawlinson was an Englishman who came to the Glengarry and Lochaber region of the Scottish Highlands to conduct an iron work. While there, he employed many local Highland workers, and became himself quite enamored with their native dress, which at that time consisted of the feilidh-mor, or belted plaid (called in modern parlance a “great kilt”).

The belted plaid was a length of woolen cloth some four plus yards in length and wide enough to reach from the wearer’s knees to above his head, gathered into folds and worn belted at the waist. It was a versatile and sensible garment for trekking about the glens and vales, to be sure, but not the most convenient apparel for iron smelting.

Rawlinson supposedly abbreviated the garment for his workers, cutting the feilidh-mor in half along the waist, so that the bottom portion would form the feilidh-beag (literally, “small wrap”), and the upper mantle could be worn as a separate piece and cast aside at will. And thus the modern kilt is born, an Englishman for the midwife!

The best documentation for this is a letter written by Mr. Ivan Baillie of Aberiachan, dated 1768. He claims to have known Rawlinson for over 40 years, and states that his “inventing” of the small kilt occurred 50 years previous (c. 1718). The Sobieski Stuart brothers, infamous for their great forgery, the Vestiarium Scoticum, recount the story with slightly different details in their 1845 work, Costumes of the Clans. They date the event to 1715 and give the credit to a Mr. Pinkerton, a regimental tailor who visited Rawlinson and had the idea to separate the upper and lower portions of the plaid for ease of use.

(It must be mentioned at this time that the belted plaid actually consisted of two lengths of cloth, some 25” to 30” wide, sewn together along their length. Therefore the “invention” here was not so much cutting apart the belted plaid, but opting not to join the two lengths together).

Regardless of the details, there have always been those who have questioned the legitimacy of this story. Some, no doubt, object to it out of a sense of Scottish national pride. But others point to evidence that would seem to show the wearing of the feilidh-beag (the lower part of the belted plaid) from a period before Rawlinson. The Arms of Skene of that Ilk, c. 1672, seem to depict a figure in the feilidh-beag. Highland dress historian Bob Martin (an accomplished painter himself) is of the opinion that a portrait of Kenneth Sutherland, Lord Duffus, c. 1700, shows the feilidh-beag.

So the Rawlinson story is not universally acknowledged as the origin of the small kilt. But let us, for the sake of argument, accept it as true. What would that tell us? Would that make the kilt an English garment?

The original kilt was the feilidh-mor, which developed quite organically from the native Gaelic dress of the Highland Scots during the latter part of the sixteenth century. Its Scottish origins are undisputed. The later adoption of the feilidh-beag is not the end-all and be-all of Highland attire. Nor was this to be the last modification of Highland dress. The feilidh-beag, as worn in the early eighteenth century, was no more a modern kilt than the belted plaid of old! Like the belted plaid, it was an untailored garment. At most, keepers or perhaps a drawstring would be added to facilitate wear, but the pleats were not sewn down from waist to hips as in a modern tailored kilt. That development would have to wait till the end of that century.

So even if the stories are true, we still could not say that an Englishman invented the kilt. At most we could say that an Englishman had an idea that helped to progress Scottish Highland fashion and contributed to the development of the modern kilt. (And if we are to believe some of the counter-evidence presented, it was a development that the kilt was undergoing already).

And even then, we would be giving this credit to an Englishman, in the singular, whether Rawlinson or Pinkerton – certainly not to “the English,” as some are wont to put it. Your average Englishman had about as much to do with the kilt as he did with kimonos or the Aztec tilma.

The story recounts an Englishman who journeys to the Gaelic Scottish Highlands, observes and adopts the indigenous dress, and suggests an adaptation that apparently proved to be very popular with the native wearers. The chief of the MacDonells of Glengarry is said to have enjoyed wearing the feilidh-beag, and thus helped to spread the fashion. The kilt developed the way that it did, into the form we know today, because those developments were accepted and thought useful by those that wore the kilt – the Highland Scots.

Nowhere in all the annals of recorded history did the English ever claim that the kilt was their own. Everywhere it is identified as the garb of the Highland Gael that was later (after the Union of the Parliaments) adopted as the symbolic clothing of all of Scotland.

I suspect that those who today suggest the kilt is actually an English garment may have ulterior motives. Perhaps they enjoy acting like someone “in on the secret” at Scottish gatherings. People like believing that they have privileged knowledge. These ideas could also be attractive to those non-Scots tempted to wear the kilt, but who assume one must have Scottish blood in order to do so. If the kilt is really an English garment, then the question of ethnicity doesn’t matter so much.

To them I say, go ahead – wear the kilt! But don’t feel the need to justify it with false history. We have much to learn from Rawlinson in that regard. He was an Englishman who felt at ease adopting the Highland dress as his own. And if we are to believe John Taylor, another Englishman who visited the Highlands one hundred years before Rawlinson, the tradition of non-Scots adopting the Highland garb is a long one. In his account of his visit to Braemar in 1618, he wrote, “As for their attire, any man of whatsoever degree that comes among them must not disdain to wear it; for if they do then they will disdain to hunt… but if men be kind to them, and be in their habit, then they are conquered with kindness, and sport will be plentiful.”

So non-Scots certainly may wear the kilt. But when you do so, remember that you are wearing the Scottish National Dress!