Sporran tassels: the long and short of it

[OC Richard]

I discovered something interesting while looking at a large number of images of members of Highland regiments in the 19th century.

I was looking at the long hair sporrans and the arrangement of tassels on them.

We all know the regimental sporrans which have come down to us from the late Victorian period:

Black Watch: white hair with five short black tassels
Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders: black hair with six short white tassels
Gordon Highlanders, Seaforth Highlanders: white hair with two long black tassels
Cameron Highlanders: black hair with two long white tassels

But... the earlier images of the Gordon Highlanders show a black sporran with five short white tassels... and I found out that if I went back far enough, ALL regiments had five or six short tassels, and none had long tassels.

Something I didn't know, that long tassels were a bit of a late-comer.

Now keeping in mind that the regiments as we've always known them came into being in the 1881 reforms which amalgamated pairs of numbered regiments into named regiments, I observed the following:

regt#: sporran - earliest long tassel image, and colours

42nd: white with 5 short black - (never changed style)

78th: white with 6 short black - 1877 white with two long black

79th: brown with 6 short black - 1855 black with two long white

92nd: black with 5 short white - 1885 white with two long black

93rd: black with 6 short white - (never changed style)

As you can see the 79th Foot (Cameron Highlanders) seem to have once again been the trend-setters. The 92nd didn't change until after the 1881 reforms were in place. The 42nd and 93rd never changed over to the new style.

Actually the first image of a military long hair sporran with two long tassels I have is a painting of a 79th officer in "undress" uniform from c1850.

Of note, perhaps, is that the officer's full dress or in some cases levee dress sporrans never made the switch, the Cameron Highlanders still with five short tassels on a grey body etc.

Here are some lads before the switchover to long tassels, the 78th Foot wearing the short-lived 1856 style doublets before gauntlet cuffs were introduced:



In this regiment NCOs wore white tassels, ORs black. The pipers' sporran appears to be grey hair and tassels. The 78th became part of the Seaforth Highlanders in 1881.