Civilian Spats

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

While I'm sure spats might help keep horse manure off the laces and hose, I doubt that had anything to do with their original intent. After all, spats didn't originate in London. Am I correct in stating that Scotland, and especially the Highlands, was never a place where horses were predominant like they were in the rest of Europe? From all I've read, there weren't a lot of horses used in Scotland.

Horses, and in this general category I'm including ponies, were widely encountered throughout most of Scotland, although less so in the more rugged Highlands. Prior to the railroads almost everything was moved by horse and cart, and that included the transportation of goods in Scotland. A gentleman in a Scottish town or city would experience the same "under foot" problems as his counterpart in London, or Paris, or New York, and would have worn spats-- kilted or not.

Spats evolved from gaiters, which were commonly worn by gentlemen in the late 18th/early 19th century to protect either their trousers or stockings from becoming soiled when walking any distance, or if astride a horse. These gaiters, which originally would have reached above the knee in the manner of military spatterdashes, slowly became reduced in size until three sizes became the norm; those reaching to the knee (as still worn by some bishops, arch deacons, and rural deans), those rising to the calf (as worn by kilted soldiers in Scottish regiments), and those which rise only to the ankle and are worn by civilians and soldiers in Scottish regiments that wear trews instead of kilts, and are commonly referred to as "spats".

In the 19th/20th century spats performed an admirable function insofar as they protected the soft leather upper portion of expensive shoes from becoming muddy, or wet. As high button shoes went out of fashion, so too did spats as they no longer served a useful purpose.