Figure 1.--William Notman in Montreal took this portrait of Henry Ogg in 1863. The little boy is wearing a plaid dress and pantalettes.
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Figure 1.--William Notman in Montreal took this portrait of Henry Ogg in 1863. The little boy is wearing a plaid dress and pantalettes. |
One might think that boys in Quenec, with the Province's large French population,might be the least likely to wear kilts. Because wealthy Scottish mrchants (Allan, Fraser, McGill, McTavish, etc) played a prominent role in Montrel, nurmerous boys there wore kilts. We note that the British royal family visited Paris in 1855. Queen Victoria for the royal visit brought her oldest son along and he wore kilts for the occassion, causing a fashion sensation in France. We believe, however, that in the 19th century, French fashions had oinly limited influence in Canada, even in Quebec. The primary influence for kiklts in Canada was the Scotts in the colony. William Notman, who was an outstanding Montreal photographer, took innumerable pictures of boys in kilts. The kilt outfit we see here from the 1860s wear Highland kilt outfits and not the kilt suits that were becoming popular in America (figure 2). We also notice portraits of boys in plaid dresses. The McCord Museum in Montréal has his entire collection. We believe that most of these boys come from cottish families. We do not kno to what extent the French boys in Quebec wore kilts. A Canadian reader writes, "Children (2 to
10 years old) were like ambassadors wear kilts to demonstrate pride in their Scottish heritage. [HBC note: HBC is not positive that the boys chose the kilts out of pride in their Scottish heritage. It seems more likelythat their parents wanted to make a show of their Scottush heritage. We do not have, however, any actual contemporary evide to subsantiate this one way or the other.]
Unknown author. Rise and Fall of the English Elite of Montreal.
Ewing, Elizabeth. History of Children's Costume (New York: Scribner Sons, 1977).
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