First use of kilt pins

[OC Richard]

I was thinking I might just use a cap badge if I felt the need.

Yes exactly, some of the Victorian kilt pins seen in The Highlanders Of Scotland look just like the cap badges these gents are wearing- strap & buckle circle with clan crest in the middle.

BTW many of the do-dads we think of as necessary today weren't then. In THOS one sees bonnets worn with no badges, kilts with no kilt pins, socks with no sginean or flashes. Contrary to expectations, the Victorian Highland costume was often the epitome of plain-ness, with no metal whatsoever. The jackets worn are often just the plain ordinary jackets of the period.

Note what we don't see. The gent on the right has no cap badge, or even cockade. Neither gent has a kilt pin, or sgian, or flashes. The jackets are plain, with ordinary buttons. The shoes likewise are plain ordinary shoes. Note that the sporrans have no metal whatsoever: plain leather stitched cantles, tassels in leather cones.



And a photo from the same period showing the same sort of thing, in case anyone questions the accuracy of the MacLeay portraits



Here's one of the very few kilt pins seen in THOS, the gent on the left, which appears to be the same as his cap badge.



This wearing of a cap badge as a kilt pin is alive and well in Scotland, with the Boghall & Bathgate Pipe Band (looks like the piper on the far right misplaced hers)