Vintage military kilt cloth query

[Troglodyte]

That's interesting.

House Of Edgar still weaves (or did up until recently) a lighter-weight version, 18oz as I recall, of that traditional OR-style cloth.

I purchased a Royal Stewart kilt in that cloth, and made with the green binding. Edgar said they had done many of those, for the military I believe they said.

Yes the fabric is quite different from ordinary civilian 16oz worsted kilting cloth, more blanket-like. Due to the fuzzy surface the pattern of the tartan doesn't look as crisp. The sett size is rather larger.

Fairly recent photos of, for example, the Pipes & Drums of 4SCOTS, show a clear difference between the kilt of the Pipe Major (which looks more like civilian 16oz worsted) and the kilts of the other pipers (having that fuzzy look).

So my impression was that this fabric was still being used at least in the pre-RRS uniforms (antecedent dress) maintained by some of the Pipes & Drums. I'll look for photos showing this.

Here, note that the kilt of the PM of 3SCOTS' has a rather smaller sett-size. The relative fuzziness isn't apparent here, but the fabric of the OR's kilt looks identical to the military-spec kilt I purchased from HoE.



Here, note that the kilt of the PM of 4SCOTS (foreground) has the clear distinct tartan of civilian 16oz cloth, while the ORs' kilts have the fuzzy less-distinct pattern of the 18oz ORs' cloth. I've compared swatches of both cloths in a HoE sample-book, and seen both types of kilts in person, so I can assure you it's not an illusion of photography.



In this closeup of a piper of The Highlanders (pre-RRS) you can see how muted the red lines in the Cameron of Erracht tartan are.



In any case, this heavy wooly huge-sett fabric was still being made the last time I checked by House of Edgar. It's not the 22oz stuff, but it might be the closest to it that's widely available now.

The HoE swatch-books were one of my first points of reference, but the cloth now being made is quite different from this old stuff.

The current offering, although clearly a heavier weight, is smoother and flatter, and would make up into a superior grade kilt.

The cloth of these old army kilts seems aimed directly at work-a-day use, of a time when the soldier's life was lived in the kilt - thier civvies were sent home, so the cloth and the garment had to cope with every situation, from cermonial and barrack duties to active service under fire in wet and muddy trenches.

The War Office must have had tens of thousands of these superb kilts on their hands, following the general demobilisation at the end of the '14-'18 war, and when the regiments were taken out of the kilt for combat wear a few years later. Perhaps there is a warehouse of stores, long-forgotten about, packed with all this gear, just waiting to make its way onto the market.

After all, the likes of eBay is full of current issue RRoS surplus, and the British Army has never been smaller. In 1918, Britain had something like six million men in service.

[neloon]

The War Office must have had tens of thousands of these superb kilts on their hands, following the general demobilisation at the end of the '14-'18 war, and when the regiments were taken out of the kilt for combat wear a few years later. Perhaps there is a warehouse of stores, long-forgotten about, packed with all this gear, just waiting to make its way onto the market.

The kilts were mostly snatched up in the 1950s by scouts, hikers etc. often via the "Army and Navy Stores" which still exists but has no kilts nowadays.

Alan

[McMurdo]

Yes, the cloth is very similar, even identical.

Part of the problem I have with my kilt, is that the maker's label has been removed. It also seems to have had some alteration - a sort of cut-and-shut job, as there is a sewn joint down the centre back pleat, which includes the waistband.

The joining is too neat and precise to make me think it could be the result of joining two damaged kilts, but it could be a repair of some kind. Curiously, the lining is one piece.

I have never seen a join of this kind on a military kilt (they are common otherwise) but it is the split in the waistband webbing that makes me suspicious. I have wondered if my kilt is a relic of the Great War, as when I acquired it, it had a matching waistcoat of obviously 1920s style, and with a self-material back.

Here is the original post about the Hunting Stewart kilt there is a photo of the label here as well, just like yours, it has faded and can no longer be read.

http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f...lection-94134/

[Troglodyte]

The kilts were mostly snatched up in the 1950s by scouts, hikers etc. often via the "Army and Navy Stores" which still exists but has no kilts nowadays.

Alan

That certainly accounted for some, and the army-surplus stores I remember from the '70s to the '90s always seemed to have a few kilts for sale.

Disposing of the surplus after 1918 would have swamped the second-hand market, if all the kilts were made available to the public. The Highland regiments appear to have had two battalions of regulars and a third of TA volunteers in peacetime, which quickly expanded to 25 battalions in the case of the Black Watch, 17 Seaforths, 15 A&SH, and nine Gordons as the war progressed, but this will have varied slightly over the period.

Allowing for approximately 1,000 men per battalion, the army would have found they had four or five times the number of kilts they actually needed once they returned to peacetime numbers, so they must have been disposed of in some way other than selling them off to the public. The fate possibly 50,000 or more kilts will be in the records somewhere, perhaps as returned to stores, discarded as US, or reissued over time.

[OC Richard]

Old army kilts still come up on Ebay all the time, thing is, the old ones don't seem to be dated.

Since the same style would be made, what, from the Boer War period up through WWII, it's hard to know.

As far as I know the dates regularly start coming with the NATO labelling.

[Troglodyte]

Old army kilts still come up on Ebay all the time, thing is, the old ones don't seem to be dated.

Since the same style would be made, what, from the Boer War period up through WWII, it's hard to know.

As far as I know the dates regularly start coming with the NATO labelling.

From what I understand, NATO sets certain specifications for clothing and equipment, and the post-war NATO-era kilts will conform. This is useful to know, and can be taken as a guarantee of quality when buying modern army surplus gear.

The HLI kilt I mentioned - unissued and still with basting stitches - had the familiar sewn-in linen label showing the usual sizing, and with the WD broard arrow mark. That was dated 1936 which was when the HLI were put into the kilt again. Did they order too many, I wonder.

What I have been unable to varify with certainty, is whether individual regiments (even battalions) had the own procurment systems at that stage, and what freedom of choice was available to them. There has always been a preferred supplier list, but tenders have usually been a Dutch auction in order to win the contract. The latest of these has seen the Highlanders source their kit from Pakistani firms - to outrage at home, but indifference in Whitehall.

[EagleJCS]

Nothing to add to the topic of the OP, but having never heard the term 'Dutch Auction', I had to look it up.

For those that don't know:

A Dutch auction is a market structure in which the price of something offered is determined after taking in all bids to arrive at the highest price at which the total offering can be sold. In this type of auction, investors place a bid for the amount they are willing to buy in terms of quantity and price.*

*https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/dutchauction.asp