Figure 1.--We found this amateur snap shot which was dated in the 1890s. Tge boy iswearing a cut-away jacket and kilt for outdoor activitives. It is interesting becaise most of our19th century images are studio portraits. He is not waring ny headwear which seems a little unusual at the time. The boy looks to be about 6 years old and from a well-to-do family given the way he and the men are dressed. We think it was taken in Scotland, but the location was not identified.

The British outlawed the kilt in Scotland after Culloden. We are not entirely sure how severly this edicy was enforced and if it extended to children. We believe that gradually British enforcemrnt became less severe. AndEnglish attitudes towards the Scotts gradually changed with literary giants like Sir Walter Scott helping to reshape the Scottish image. We have very little information, however, as to what extent boys were wearing kilts in Scotland during the early-19th centuty. We know that Scottish regiments wore kilts, but we are less sure to what extent men and boys were wearing kilts in the Highlands. One of the few clues we have is a Turner portrait showing an upper-class Edinburgh boy wearing a kilt (1822). At about the same tgime that Victoria and Albert began dressing the Princes' in kilts we begin to have photogrphy to record a record (1840s). And we begin to see large numbers of images by the 1860s with the CDV. We note substantial numbers of boys wearing a variety of kilt garments. This increases mrkedly in the 1860s with the appearance of the CDV. Thus we begin to see a true picture of the various kilt garments and how common they were. Especially notable is how popular kilt suits become in the Unitd States by the 1870s at least afor boys from prosperous families. The studio photography doe not, however, give us aood idea as yo just how common the kilt is among Scottish boys. We know some Scottish boys dressed up in kilts, bur we do not know to what extebt boys wore them for everyday life or to what extent working-clss boys wore them.

The 1800s

Industrial advances and wealth accumulated from the trade of tobacco, sugar, skaves, and cotton transforming Britiain and this inckuded Scotland. This ked ti the begiunning of mnakidern urban Scotland at the turn of the 19th century. The country began the shidt rural overty to a more affkuent urba society. Growing owns, massive factories, and even heavy industry took hold. Mining, shipbuilding and textiles were very important to Scotland’s development at this time. The kilt-clad Scottish regiments performed brilliantly in the Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815). The Scotts before the Napoleonic War had a still very negative image among the English, as a backward, uncooth if not traterous people. This image changed radically during the War. The Scottish regiments became the shick troops of empire. And by the 1810s the Scottish Revival was well underway led by authors like Robert Butns and Sir Walter Scott. We do not, however have a good idea as o how common kilts were in Scotland, even in the Highlands.

The 1820s

Until the 1820s the kilt was a Scottish garment. King George IV in 1822 traveled to Scotland and wore the kilt. I'm not sure about the Stuarts, but none of the images I noted, including those of the children show them wearing kilts. George IV was the first British monarch I know of to have worn the kilt. It was a political statement to make the monarch more popular in Scotland. A painting of the event show a kilted boy at St. Giles. I am not sure, however, how common it was for boys to wear the kilt in the 1820s. The boys placement and dress suggest he was from a wealthy family. Certainly he was dressed especially for the occasion. I'm not sure what he and other Scottish boys normally wore. We also notice kilts and tartan dresses as well as tartan trimmed tunics being used as a school uniform in Robert Owen's New Lanark school.

The 1830s

Until the reign of William IV and his famous visit to Edinburgh, no self respectful city dwelling Scot would refer to a kilt as part of his national dress. The kilt belonged to the 'wild Irish' as both the English, and majority of Scots, described both Irishmen outside The Pale and 'Scottish' Highlanders. [Freemantle]

The 1840s

Queen Victoria was noted for the fashions chosen for the princes. The clothing chosen for the royal children had a huge impact on children's fashions in England and other countries. The Queen in the 1840s began dressing the princes in Highland kilts. The kilts worn by Prince Albert Edward (future Edward VIII) in particular had a huge fashion impact. This helped identify the kilt as a suitable garment for boys. All of Victoria's and Albert's children wore kilts, both for formal state occassions and for casual wear when vacationing at Balmoral. We also see a weakthy family styling themselves the Mckays departing the Hughlands for New Zealand in 1844. Two of the four boys wore kilts, the other two a dress and a tunic. They wanted their departure memorialized in a Highland scene despite the fact they left from London.

The 1850s

Scotland was experiencing extraordinary growth and change at mid-century. A combunation of the Scottish poets, Scottish academics, and the performance of the Scottish regimnents in America and more importantly the Napolenomic Wars changed the image of Scotland in England. And the younhg Princess Vicctoria's infatuation with Scotand cemented the new attitudes. And those new attitiudes were well, established by mid-century. Scotland itself was changing. The railriad reached Anereen up the coast from Edinnurgh (1850). James Young patented a method of distilling kersoscene (paraffin) from coal, laying the foundations for the Scottish paraffin industry. This does not sound like much today, but kersovemne at the time was the principal use of hydrocarbons other than coal. It was used for home lighting. Whale oil had begun to decline because of the depletion of whale populations. Scottish industry was flourishing. People were flocking to urban areas. Overcrowding was became a serious problem. Much has been written about urban poverty. Dicken's movels are fampis. Muh less has been written anout rural pberty. Obviously, rural people would not have flocked to the city if comditions has not been better than in the country. Scotland was necoming a major processor of jute. The clearances begun a century earlier were deckining. The 1850s woukd be the last decade of notable clearances. Not unrelated, Ewan MacPhee died in Fort William (1850). He was of Scotland's last great outlaw. We note well to do boys dressing up in fancy kilt affairs. We note Lord Elgin. his father of Parthenon fame , with his son Victor Alexander who is wearing a Highland kilt outfit with alack military jacket about 1855. They apparently had their portrait taken during a trip to Paris. Lord Elgin was Scottish, but the family spent areat deal of time in London and foreign postings. Victor was born in Montreal, Canada. While we have photographic images od well-to-do boys wearing fancy kilt outfits, photography was too expensive for poor country families, especially boys in the Highlands. Photography in the 19th century was studio photography. Now it was possible to go outside the studop to take pgotographs, but this only occrred for really important subjects like the Crimean War. Capturing the poor Higkanf families was not one of them. We do, however, have some drawings of the country folk. And we see Irish boys wearing kiits.

The 1860s

The Prince of Wales' two boys were born in 1864 and 1865. The eldest son was Prince Eddy. We know that both Prince Eddy and Prince George wore kilts as boys, we think largely to please their grandmother Queen Victoria. We are not sure when they began wearing kilts. Queen Victoria would have insisted on it at least when they visited Balmoral. We are not sure what the Princess of Wales thought about the kilt. Our earliest photograph of Eddy and George wearing kilts dates from the 1870s when the boys were 12-13 years old. We notice ordinary Scottish boys wearing kilts. We do not have a lot of Scottish images from the 19th century yet. We have found one CDV portrait of an unidentified Fife boy wearing a kilt and soran with an irdinary suit jacket and vest. The portrait is undated, but looks like the 1860s to us.

The 1870s

The kilts popularized by Queen Victoria continued to be a popular style for boys. It was most popular in Britain, but fashion magazines show that it was also worn in France. The style reached America in the 1840s, but it was not until the 1870s that large numbers of American boys--most with no or only the most tenous conection to Scotland--were outfitted in kilts. It seemed an ideal choice for mother who were not yet ready to breech their sons. The kilt was the height of fashion for boys in England and France. It also crossed the Atlantic. It was not the Highland kilt, however that proved popular in America, but rather the kilt suit that had virtually no relationship with a true kilt, other than both were skirted garments.

The 1880s

HBC has noted quite a few British images of boys wearing kilts. We have little information about these images. We know that some were Scottish. We are not sure how common this was and what the conventiions were. We also know that some English boys also wore them. Queen Victoria helped popularize Scottish fashions early in her rein. A British contributor reports that boys from Scottish families domiciled south of the border were often dressed in kilts. HBC wonders if this was just for formal occasions. Some English boys might have also been dressed in kilts as a popular fashion. We note, for example, that English illustrator Ernest Sheppard, of Winnie the Poo fame, had a confrontation with another boy at a party. The other boy was dressed in a kilt and took exception to Ernest's Little Lord Fauntleroy suit. Ernest judged that a boy in a kilt had no right to take exception with is Fauntleroy suit. A terrible rowe ensued. The punch bowl was upset and Ernest was sent home in disgrace. Now the other boy may have been Scottish, as the incident occurred in London, more likely the boy was English. Unlike America boys who commonly wore kilt suits, British boys more commonly wore actual kilts with Highland regalia.

The 1890s

Our Scottish archive is very limited. We have found images of boys weaing Highland kilt outfits during the 1890s. We notice two principal jacket styles. One was a black military jacket. The other was different styles of tweed jackets. These Highland kilt outfits were worn with different kinds of collars, including Eton collars. Many of the portraits show boys wearing black military-styled jackets with Eton collars. A good example of a Scottish boy wearing a formal kilt outfit is Geoffrey Keen although he dos not have an Eton collar. We notice an unidentified boy wearing a tweed cut away jacket abnd vest with an Eton collar and the Highland regalia like a back slash and fancy pin. Most of the images we have of Scottish boys wearing kilts during the 1890s are formal studio portraits. These are useful to see the garments, but not the conventions for wearing them. We are not sure to what extent boys in Scotland wore kilts for school or informally after school and what they wore with the kilt for these more informal occassions. Thus we are not entirely where these kilt outfits they were worn. We suspect kilt outfits were for dressing up or school. Of course some of the regalia outfits like a back sash would not have been worn to school. Kilts were presumably more common in the Highlands and worn more casually which might nmean kilts without a jacket. Prince George's two oldest children were born in 1894 and 1895. As younger children the boys wore dresses and sailor suits after breaching. We are not sure when the boys began wearing kilts, but we do not have any photographs of them in kils until after the turn of the century. This suggests that this was also done during the 1890s. We notice girls in the 1890s wearing kilt-like skirts.

Created: August 5, 2001
Last updated: 1:04 AM 6/20/2020