18th century scottish regiments

[figheadair]

Peter Cochrane's 1987 Scottish Military Dress addresses this, and makes reference to Morier's painting of a Highlander of the 42nd, and notes that the red overstripe shown on the government tartan was introduced by Lord John Murray when he became colonel in 1745 - but probably for the grenadier company only.

Cochrane quotes James Logan, although he was writing a century later, who says of this red overstripe that '...it appeared to me very un-uniform...' but tells us that the same is included in an 1812 aquatint of a 42nd Grenadier by Hamilton Smith, and that the same differentiation from the 42nd was used for Loudon's Highlanders in 1745.

There is a Black Watch Red Hackle version of the regimental tartan, with a red overstripe between the double black lines on the blue, that was introduced in 2009 by House of Edgar as a tribute to those who served in the regiment.

I can't find the original but here is the aquatint showing Grenadiers of the 42nd or Royal and 92nd or Gordon Highlanders by J C Stadler after Charles Hamilton Smith, 1812.



The tartan appears to be Wilsons of Bannockburn's 42nd Pattern Officers, Sergeants and Privates which was included in their 1819 Key Pattern Book as Coarse Kilt with Red. Here's me weaving it.



The Coarse Kilt with Red tartan appears to have been adopted by the 42nd in the 1780s and seems to have been what Logan, whose reference was based on David Stewart of Garth's history of the 42nd, seems to have been the basis for the 42nd red line claim. I am not aware of any contemporary evidence to support Lord John Murray introducing the red stripe.