Figure 1.--This cabinet card portrait shows an unidentified Scottish boy in a Highland kilt. While he is not idebtuified there is a note on the back of the card indicating that he was 10-years old. Notice the Scotish themed backdrop. The boy wears a Highland kilt with a cut-away jacket and vest. He has a plaid back sash and ornamental pin. He wears an Eton collar and jaunty bow. He also has a leather soporan. The portrait was taken at the Moffat in Edinburgh. The back illustrates the medals won, with special emphasis on a 1895 nmedal. This suggests that the portrait was taken soon after, probably about 1896-1900. The very early 1900s is also possibe. The mount is consistent with this time frame.

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 10-year old Eduinburgh boy wearing a tweed cut away jacket abnd vest with an Eton collar and the Highland regalia like a back sash and fancy pin (figure 1). 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: 9:57 AM 8/21/2011
Last updated: 9:57 AM 8/21/2011