Scotland's Forged Tartans

[CDNSushi]

The tartan trade, ever in search of business, leapt gladly upon the new "old" tartans

Ever the cynic, I would point out, that just as much money was spent on this book by enthusiastic hopefuls trying to discover their clans' tartans, there will be an equal or greater amount of money spent on the book that exposes the whole racket.

It's like causing a disease just so you can sell the cure... Not that I'm accusing the modern researchers of doing anything wrong, but are you sure they aren't actually descendants of the brothers John and Charles Hay Allan? ith:

Just sayin'...

[artificer]

Ever the cynic, I would point out, that just as much money was spent on this book by enthusiastic hopefuls trying to discover their clans' tartans, there will be an equal or greater amount of money spent on the book that exposes the whole racket.

It's like causing a disease just so you can sell the cure... Not that I'm accusing the modern researchers of doing anything wrong, but are you sure they aren't actually descendants of the brothers John and Charles Hay Allan? ith:

Just sayin'...

ohhhhh CDN, but you're a cynical one! (we aren't, by chance, separated by birth, are we?)

[figheadair]

Generally correct but the Sobieskies sometimes produced tartans for clans that already had one - see below. Generally though the older setts have been repleaced by the VS sett.

I think we often tend to forget that ALL the assorted tartan setts worn by all the various clans were designed, named, and thus "invented" by someone at some point in time (all but a very few since the beginning of the 19th century), so instead of villifying the Sobieski-Stuart brothers, I think we should applaud them for being an important part of the tartan design industry, and for popularizing the concept of named tartan patterns for Lowland and Border clans as well as Highland ones.

Some of the tartans that owe their existence to these ingenious entrepreneurs are:

Armstrong
Bruce only the commonly seen clan one. Wilsons of Bannockburn woven their Old Bruce and New Bruce some 20-30 years before the VS
Cameron the red clan sett. The Cameron of Erracht dates to c1793
Chisholm only the commonly seen clan one. There is an example of Wilsons of Bannockburn's older Chisholm on the Cockburn collection c1810
Crawford
Dunbar
Dundas
Erskine
Fraser only the commonly seen clan one. Wilsons of Bannockburn woven their Fraser and Fraser of Lovat some 20-30 years before the VS
Hamilton
Johnston
Kerr
Lindsay
MacArthur
MacLean (hunting)
MacQueen
Maxwell
Ogilvie (hunting)
Ramsay
Rose
Stewart of Atholl
Stuart of Bute
Sutherland
Wallace
Wemyss