Kilted in the 1800's

[Drac]

Jane Austen was/is very much a fixture of Regency England. As such it would have been neigh on impossible that a gentleman in England during that time would have worn a kilt. Proper attire for the period would be that of the upper-middle class and upper-class English gentleman.

Had you bought your wife a membership in the Sir Walter Scott Society of North America instead, you could have probably justified another kilt...

Her interest is in English history (masters in Tudor reign) and English Lit. While she would of course know and probably read Sir Walter Scott and Robert Burns I've never heard her dicuss either much.

BTW http://eswsc.com/ . No North American one yet.

Who said I was a gentleman I was thinking that there were Scots around back than and while it may have been unlikely for an English gentleman to have been in a kilt I was figuring a Scottish one would have not had an issue of wearing one. Especially if, as mentioned by OC Richard, an officer.

I will look into English garb of the era but that is another forum...

Jim

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

Who said I was a gentleman

Jim, it goes without saying that only a gentleman would give his wife a membership in the Jane Austen society...

I was thinking that there were Scots around back than and while it may have been unlikely for an English gentleman to have been in a kilt I was figuring a Scottish one would have not had an issue of wearing one. Especially if, as mentioned by OC Richard, an officer.

Prior to the "King's Jaunt" a few years after the death of Jane Austen, the Scottish prejudice against being seen kilted in polite English (or even Scottish) society was rampant. True, a few individuals did wear the kilt in the South, but their personal eccentricities often bordered on madness-- a quick reading about Alisdair McDonnell should dispel any notions of the English gentry (or their visiting Scotch cousins) flouncing about in kilts. As far as Scottish army officers wearing their uniform is concerned, away from the garrison it would have been more-or-less confined to officers serving with their regiments in that locale (this would have been the case for the whole of the British army). As far as I am aware the Scots were pretty much kept bottled up in Scotland between the end of the American War, and the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars. Any Highland officer that ventured to mingle with "persons of consequence" would, in all likelihood, have done so in civilian attire, and not his "quaint native costume," especially in South Britain.

Dashing as the kilt is, I don't believe it makes an appearance in the cannon of Jane Austen's work. Astute observer of manners and mores that she was, I think we have to assume that to be true to the spirit of her work, the kilt is a best left in the wardrobe, along with the mandarin kimono...

Looks to me as though you will end up looking like Jane Austen's Mr. D'Arcy, and not like Raeburn's Macnab. How fortunate for your wife!