Talk:Kilt

The "invention" of the fèileadh-beag by Mr Rawlinson is supported by only one article in the Scots magazine, published anonymously, many years after his death, it has no other supporting evidence and requires us to believe that in the long period up to then, Highlanders had not thought to use the remainder of a damaged or worn plaid to make a shorter version... It also ignores the fact that the fèileadh-mòr or great plaid is named before this supposed invention. Why call it a "Great" or big plaid unless to differentiate it from the small version? Given the unsupported and contentious nature of this invention perhaps it would be better if the text was changed to read something along the lines of "alleged" or "claimed" to have invented? 92.8.237.232 (talk) 20:27, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Thompson references two sources: The Culloden Papers and the Edinburgh Magazine of 1785. The magazine article is not anonymous but is signed by Evan Baillie of Oberiachan. More detail is given at History of the kilt. There is also a discussion at Thomas Rawlinson (industrialist)#Controversy. It should be noted that at the time of the magazine publications it was confirmed by "the two greatest authorities on Scottish custom of the time, Sir John Sinclair and John Pinkerton". It should also be noted that Rawlinson's business partner was Ian MacDonnell, head of the Glengarry MacDonnells, and the family support the testimony. So, "unsupported", clearly not. "Contentious", well yes, given that an Englishman was involved, but if the evidence supports such a thing it needs to be accepted despite instinctive feelings. "alleged" and "claimed", well this appears to be the result of a director of an American "museum" whose website appears to be mainly involved in sales. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 21:53, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

But see:

Purser, John (1 May 2020). "Was it really an Englishman who invented the kilt?". The National.

There is no evidence at all to support the filibeg-invention story in Rawlinson's own copious detailed papers, and supporters of the story have shown a "mendacious" anti-Scottish bias. WP needs to stop reporting this story as if it were known fact (in any of these three articles), and present it as a long-running controversy with mutiple sides.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:03, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

That article starts by talking about the 1746 – 1782 Disclothing Act. A bit irrelevant to an invention which occurred in the 1720s. Likewise the whole George IV/Sir Walter Scott section is simply anachronistic. We then get a section about some modern authors before getting back to the contemporary accounts. The National article finally goes off on a tangent claiming that the whole account was a myth invented by Hugh Trevor-Roper "mendacious for the specific purpose of denigrating Scottish culture and iconography immediately prior to the 1979 referendum" which tells us more about Purser's politics than about history.

From the Culloden Papers:

Note — This Thomas Rawlinson, an Englishman, was the person who introduced the Phelie Beg, or short kilt, into the highlands. This fact, very little known, is explained by a Letter from Evan Baillie of Oberiachan, inserted in the Edinburgh Magazine for 1785.^[1]

and later:

Note. – President Forbes's ideas regarding that part of the bill affecting the Highland dress seem very just. The English Readers, and most of the Scotch, will be surprised to understand that the Kilt or Pheliebeg was not the antient [sic] Highland garb, but was introduced into the Highlands about 1720 by one Thomas Rawlinson, an Englishman, who was overseer to a Company carrying on iron works in Glengarry's Country. The convenience of the dress soon caused it to be universally adopted in the Highlands. This circumstance is fully explained in a letter from Evan Baillie Esq. of Aberiachan, a gentleman of undoubted veracity, dated 1769, and inserted in the Edinburgh Magazine for 1785.^[2]

The original letter is online:

The Felie-beg, no part of the ancient Highland Dress.—Part of a Letter from Ivan Baillie of Abereachan, Esq;

In answer to your inquiry, I do report, according to the best of my knowledge, and the intelligence of persons of credit and very advanced ages, that the piece of Highland dress, termed in the Gaelic felie-beg, and in our Scots little kilt, is rather of late than ancient usage.

The upper garment of the Highlanders was the tartan or party-coloured plaid, termed in the Gaelic breccan when buckled round by a belt, and the lower part plaited and the upper loose about the shoulders. The dress was termed in the Gaelic felie, and in the Scots kilt. It was a cumbersome unwieldy habit to men at work or travelling in a hurry, and the lower class could not afford the expence of the belted trowsers or breeches. They wore short coats, waistcoats and shirts of as great length as they could afford; and such parts as were not covered by thefe, remained naked to the tying of the garters on their hose.

About 50 years ago, one Thomas Rawlinson an Englishman, conducted an iron work carried on in the countries of Glengarie and Lochaber; be had a throng of Highlanders employed in the service, and became very fond of the Highland dress, and wore it in the neatest form; which I can aver, as I became personally acquainted with him above 40 years ago. He was a man of genius and quick parts, and thought it no great stretch of invention to abridge the dress, and make it handy and convenient for his workmen: and accordingly directed the using of the lower part plaited of what is called the felie or kilt as above, and the upper part was set aside; and this piece of dress, so modelled as a diminutive of the former, was in the Gaelic termed felie-beg (beg in that tongue signifies little;) and in our Scots termed little kilt; and it was found so handy and convenient, that, in the shortest space. the use of it became frequent in all the Highland countries, and in many of our northern Low Countries also. This is all I can say about the date and form of the felie-beg, and what was formerly used in place of it. And I certify from my own knowledge, that till I returned from Edinburgh to reside in this country in the year 1725, after serving seven or eight years with writers to the signet, I never saw the felie-beg used, nor heard any mention of such a piece of dress, not [even] from my father, who was very intelligent and well known to [acquainted with] Highlanders, and lived to the age of 83 years, and died in the year 1738, born in May 1655.

The felie-beg is in its form and make somewhat similar to a woman’s petticoat, termed in the Gaelic boilicoat; but differs in this, that the former is not so long nor sewed in the fore-part, but made to overlap a little. The great felie or kilt was formed of the plaid double or twofold; the felie-beg, of it single.

I use f and not ph in spelling felie beg, as, in my esteem, more adapted to the Gaelic.

March 22. 1768.^[3]

Martin of Sheffield (talk) 09:50, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Criticising Purser's article for having poor chronological organisation is not an argument in favor of the Rawlinson story. Nor is just repeating the Rawlinson story in great detail; no one suggests that the Rawlinson story didn't exist and or wasn't published, or that it didn't have detailed claims in it, or even that some later people didn't entirely believe it. You're even misrepresenting the Purser article as "claiming that the whole account was a myth invented by Hugh Trevor-Roper", which is not at all what it says. It's also an obvious fallacy to suppose that when writer A observes that writer B has taken an extremist position that aligns with their political career, that writer A is exhibiting an equal-but-opposite extremism. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here, other than that you're a big fan of the Rawlinson story.

Banks & De la Chapelle in Tartan: Romancing the Plaid (pp. 71, 74) label the Rawlinson story a "legend", and suggest that the workers themselves may have invented the short kilt (they seem to accept the invention location). Dunbar in The History of Highland Dress doesn't seem to address the story at all (edit: he does, but just defers to McClintock (1943), a source we need to get hold of). Barnes in The Uniforms & History of the Scottish Regiments (p. 265) says that idea of the short kilt "was attributed" to Rawlinson; i.e., he's repeating it as a story told, not as an ascertained fact. We need to see what other published works on Highland dress say on the matter. It's not our job as editors here to fight for uncritical presentation of ideas we like, or total suppression of ones we're suspicious of, but to make it clear to readers that the sources don't agree, when the sources don't agree.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:17, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

I've used available sources to improve our most detailed section on this, History of the kilt#The small kilt or walking kilt, as shown in this diff . The sections at the other related articles should be edited to conform with this "Wikipedia isn't taking a side" cleanup, since the sources clearly conflict on the matter.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:07, 22 May 2023 (UTC); rev'd. 02:50, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Next on the reading list about this, said to be "a response to Trevor-Roper's thesis": Pittock, Murray (2012). "Plaiding the invention of Scotland". In Brown, Ian (ed.). From Tartan to Tartanry. Edinburgh University Press. pp. 32–62. ISBN 978-0748638772.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:02, 25 May 2023 (UTC) Update: I have this book on order, should get it this week.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:13, 6 June 2023 (UTC) Further update: I have it, and am now reading it (but starting at the beginning, not Pittock's article mid-way through).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:14, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

In the interim, I'm going over Trevor-Roper's essay in detail. I think his critics are correct that he's "mendacious" and politically motivated in his anti-Scottish ranting. (And our own article on him opens by labeling him a "polemicist".) The piece is extremely biased, right from its "Highlanders were just backward Irish castoffs" opening. Worse, it's drawing on trash sources. He cites the "Sobieski Stuarts" as if they are reliable authors instead of proven mountebanks (even though his later passages make it clear he knows they were mountebanks). And he calls John Pinkerton one of "the two greatest authorities on Scottish customs then living", but Pinkterton was a German-master-race theorist whose writings soundly condemn the Gaelic Scots as subhuman; he was even more mendaciously anti-Scottish than Trevor-Roper. The latter also claims that the Baillie letter has "excited no dissent", yet we see that it's excited quite a lot of dissent, starting at least in the early 1800s with Stewart of Garth. He claims that there's no pictorial evidence of short kilts in paintings until 1747, but Innes of Learney (1939) pointed out one from 1661, and Mackay (1924) pointed out more from 1659 and 1673 (yes, they are open to interpretation but T-R's piece simply ignores them; his argument is incomplete).

(On the other hand, I think Trevor-Roper is in agreement with nearly every modern writer on tartans that clan tartans date to around the beginning of the 19th century or late 18th at the earliest in a few cases. He's also right-on about the "Ossian" material being bogus. In re-reading his material, I find a pattern: He sticks to the scholarship when addressing the Ossian-inspired "Highlandism", and he does likewise when addressing the "ancient clan tartans" legend, but in the intervening material about the Rawlinson story, he goes in a completely different direction that is best characterized as activistic polemic. That's my honest evaluation of him as a source.)
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:07, 6 June 2023 (UTC); revised: 16:23, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

I was looking for something else, but ran across this: Campbell, John Francis (1862). Popular Tales of the West Highlands. Vol. IV. Edinburgh: Edmonston & Douglas. pp. 202–203. Lachlan MacKinnon, native of Skye, flourished in the middle of the seventeeth century. ... In a satirical song ... 'Breacan' and 'Feile,' tartan plaid and kilt, are mentioned as the dress worn by the Highland chiefs of the poet's time. Why would these have been presented as separate garments if they were not separate garments? For my part, I think it's plausible that the permanently pleated small kilt was invented (by Rawlinson or otherwise) at Rawlinson's factory, though we have no evidence of this at all other than an assertion in a letter by an alleged friend of Rawlinson (published much later, seemingly timed to coincide with a debate about stripping the Highland regiments of their kilts). But I'm struck by how easy it is to find, in other writers, references to or images of kilts that are not the breacan feile 'great kilt', in material that pre-dates Rawlinson (even if we discount D. W. Stewart as trying too hard to interpret "petticoats" and other references as kilts). Note: Just found another (in William Brereton, 1634–35, quoted at length by Dunbar 1979 for other reasons, and the latter doesn't comment on it, despite going to some pains to dispell (by citation to McClintock) D. W. Stewart's claims earlier in the same book.) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:14, 7 June 2023 (UTC); rev'd. 02:48, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Source to get – Dunbar (1979) doesn't make any evidentiary arguments of his own, and just defers to: McClintock, H. F. (1943). Old Irish and Highland Dress. Dundalk: W. Tempest / Dundalgan Press.. Dunbar says it does mount refutations to various objections, so it will be worth seeking out.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:09, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

I have a copy of this on order, but it will take a while to get it, since it's shipping from UK to US.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:07, 12 July 2023 (UTC) Update: I have it now, and it's in my reading queue, but after From Tartan to Tartanry, which is a pretty dense academic volume.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:30, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Further note on Dunbar (1979): Later on he does make some arguments partly on his own (pp. 53–54), mostly about a few particular illustrations. However, the further I get into his work, the more emotive he becomes about the question, using denigrating terms for the opposing side of the debate. He also is keen to impose on others the logic that "Whilst many writers quote [old source] as evidence of [view Dunbar doesn't like], most authoritative writers [according to Dunbar] consider that he meant no more than he said" (p. 46). He throws this reasoning right out the window when the tables are turned, and confronted with a written account that very clearly describes the kilt and the plaid as separate garments, bends over backwards to label it "ambiguous" and to claim that it really could have referred to a belted plaid being misdescribed (pp. 41–42). In another place, he tries to dismiss an illustration as being of a Dutchman just because the engraver of a Scotsman's map of Aberdeen was Dutch (p. 53). Dunbar is a giant in the field, but he's not infallible (he's been caught in an outright blunder, quoting an old Victorian source that had really obvious date errors in it, and he neither caught those errors nor noticed that the chosen source was misquoting an earlier one, badly; he thereby, despite being no fan of the "ancient clan tartans" legend, ended up helping to promote the myth of clan tartans dating back to at least 1782, when the complete evidence actually demonstrates nothing of the sort). Anyway, I've tried to give him his due at History of the kilt#Dispute about invention, but the more I read and cite from more sources, the clearer it becomes that this is a long-running all-out debate that is in no way settled (e.g. Mackay (1924)'s evidence of Jacobite songs mentioning the philabeg c. 1715 doesn't appear to be addressed by anyone else, much less refuted, and the "refutations" to most of the rest are just as much bald-faced opinion on thin evidence as what they're trying to rebut.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:01, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Another source to find; Hugh Cheape says this contains (among other things) some refutation or attempted refutation of Trevor-Roper "for the inadequacy of his research": Ferguson, William (2007). "A reply to Professor Colin Kidd on Lord Dacre's contribution to the study of Scottish history and the Scottish Enlightenment". Scottish Historical Review. 77: 183–198.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:07, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

To give him yet more due, Trevor-Roper's material was developed throughout the 1970s and early '80s, then published posthumously as: Trevor-Roper, Hugh (2014) [2008]. The Invention of Scotland. Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300208580 – via Internet Archive.. A review in The Independent suggests it was explicitly "intended to counter devolution moves by the Callaghan government" [and so does the book's own introduction, now that I've read it], but it is available at bargain-bin prices [and now online via Archive.org], so I may as well see whether his kilt polemic developed into something more substantial. [It didn't; it's rehash of the previously published material discussed above.]  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:55, 22 July 2023 (UTC); rev'd. 13:56, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

As an English boy living in Scotland for my secondary education, I had it hammered into me that the proper reference to a kilt was always to be 'The Kilt'. Don't ask me why, I'm English! Damorbel (talk) 16:06, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Indeed. However this is not a kilt. It is a Wikipedia article discussing the kilt. As such its name is a reference to a Wikipedia article, not to a kilt. And the proper form for such an article name is "Kilt". -- Derek Ross | Talk 19:57, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Yes; see WP:THE.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:09, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

"The kilt", rather than "a kilt", is a literal translation from Gaelic use. It's rather an affectation to use it in English if you're not a Gaelic speaker. --Escape Orbit ^(Talk) 11:11, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

I recall a reference years ago to a letter/report/article written by a senior officer of a Scots regiment of the First World War. He was responding to concerns about the wearing of kilts in the trenches (not necessarily re gas) by stating the advantages. The only point I can remember is that if the kilt became wet, a soldier could quickly remove it, wring it out, and put it on again. If anyone knows enough to track this down, it would make an interesting addition to the lore of the kilt.

Humpster (talk) 05:59, 17 May 2025 (UTC)