Historians, Is This True?

[GlassMan]

That little article is not true in the least. The evidence for the kilt does not go back to the early middle ages, but it definitely predates Rawlinson. It is true that during the Victorian period kilts were romanticized and lots of things were added to them that no one would have even considered during the days of the Bonnie Prince Charlie or earlier.

It's just another one of those silly Englishmen trying to claim to have "invented" something that others used before.

I know many of you don't like smoking or pipes, but I once even read an article in which the claim was made that it was the English who invented the smoking pipe because they "discovered it" in the New World among the savages, and changed the material to clay to allow for easier production. Just a bunch of blather, since it was the Native Americans who invented the darn thing and the first examples of it were pipes traded to the English explorers but made by Native Americans.

But the Rawlinson "myth" has been repeated so many times that it is often taken as true. Don't believe everything you read.

[cavscout]

This is the part that really jumps out at me:

"but to replace the old belted plaid with a garment better suited to factory work."

Perhaps I'm assuming "factory" means location with things to catch and burn a kilt or exposed skin but this doesn't sound logical.

[Frank]

Ah - you must remember that a lot of dangerous work took place in those factories. When the internal combustion engine became popular in Scotland, it soon became clear that the traditional kilts worn for everyday assembly line stuff such as the manufacture of cathode ray tubes, whisky, and the celebrated eight track cartridge player would have to make way for more practical garments less likely to call into question Health and Safety at Work issues !

The 'manufactories' didn't arrive until the Industrial revolution was well underway. In the U.K. this mainly involved the making of heavy machinery and linen.

Whilst much of the machinery, it's true to say was made in Scotland, most of the linen was made in Lancashire (North England). Queen Victoria may have popularized the garment as dress wear among the nobility - but surely not among the mass of working folk ?

I still can't see how the timeline for this theory fits.