Figure 1.--These two Cumbria children look to be about 10 years old. They are dressed up for a pecial occassion, perhaps a May Day celebration. Their clothes, however, are not costumes, but look like their best dress outfits. The girl wears a white dress. The boy a Highland kilt outfit. Notice their medals. These are probably academic wards. The cabinet card portrait is undated, but the mount looks like the 1890s to us. The studio was J.R. Wilkinson in Brackelands, Wigton. Wigton is in Cumbria, the northern English county bordering the Scottish Lowlands.

The conventions for English boys wearing kilts varied from those in Scotland. There kilt might be worn for everyday wear as well as dressing up. In contrast, English boys mostly wore kilts for dresswear. We know that they were worn to parties and outings. We know they were party wear becuse Ernest Sheperd tell us that at a party a boy in a kilt teased him about his Funtleroy lace collar. And we see a boy in a kilt on a family outing. Age probably affected usage and the occssions for which kilt outfits were worn. We are unsure as to just what other occassions where they might be worn such as church are visiting relatives. They were not worn to school. We see boys wearing kilts for special occassions. We see many different kilt outfits. There may be some regional differences such as in Cumbria along the Scottish border, but even there we mosly think kilts were dress wear. This is reflected on the photographic record, although during the 19th century most photographs were studio portraits in which children were usually dresed up in their best clothes. We see quite a number of English boys dressed up in kilt outfits. Actually there are more exmples than we expected to find. Actually we have found about as many English as Scotish examples, but this probnly reflects the much larger English population. In contrast, the girls were never dressed up in Scottish outfits. As far as we can tell, this fashon began only in the mid-19th century wn the royal family began dressing the princes in kilts. This is difficult to confirm this becuse it began about the same time photograph was invented. And thus there is no photogrphic record for the early-19th century.

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Created: 9:44 AM 9/27/2014
Last updated: 9:44 AM 9/27/2014