Regimental tartans are tartan patterns used in military uniforms, possibly originally by some militias of Scottish clans, certainly later by some of the Independent Highland Companies (IHCs) raised by the British government, then by the Highland regiments and many Lowland regiments of the British Army, and eventually by some military units in other countries. The earliest evidence suggesting militia uniform tartans dates to 1691, and the first certain uniform tartan was that of the Royal Company of Archers in 1713. The IHCs raised 1725–29 by the British government appear to have had one or more uniform tartans, though some later ones did not.
The first true Highland regiment of the British Army was the 42nd Regiment of Foot (Black Watch) formed by amalgamation of the IHCs in 1739, and had its own consistent uniform tartan (known as Black Watch, 42nd, or Government tartan) by 1749 or 1757 at the latest. Some later Highland units also wore this tartan, while others developed minor variations on it, usually by adding bright-coloured over-checks (thin lines). Some few regiments developed their own tartans not based on Black Watch, including the 75th, 79th, Fraser Fencibles, and Loyal Clan Donnachie Volunteers. Some units developed special tartans for bandsmen and grenadiers.
Regimental tartans, along with regional or "district" ones, led to the development of clan tartans in the late 18th to mid-19th century. After clan tartans were introduced, the flow of influence reversed, and many regiments adopted clan tartans into their uniforms in the 19th century. Since the 2006 amalgamation of the surviving Scottish regiments as battalions into the Royal Regiment of Scotland, only 10 tartans are now used for British units.
Pre-regiment military use Clans had for a long time independently raised militias to fight in their periodic internecine conflicts. Starting in 1603, the British government itself mustered irregular militia units in the Highlands, known as the Independent Highland Companies, to police and keep the peace in the region, also engaged in more prosaic duties like road-building and acting as guides for regular army units.Telfer Dunbar (1979), p. 155. In 1627, an Alexander MacNaughtan raised a tartan-dressed body of Highland archers to serve under the Earl of Morton for Charles I of England.Campbell, J. F. (1862), pp. 404–405. The earliest image of Scottish soldiers in tartan is a 1631 copperplate engraving by Georg Köler (1600–1638); it features Highland mercenaries of the Thirty Years' War landing in the Baltic port of Stettin in 1630 or 1631, thought to be "Mackay's Regiment", the (non-governmental) militia of Donald Mackay, Lord Reay, who joined the forces of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. The men are depicted in varying dress, including belted plaid, shoulder plaid, and tartan trews with tartan hose;Scarlett (1990), p. 12. the tartan is illustrated rather crudely, and there is no way to know whether it was intended to represent a uniform. More independent companies were raised by the government in 1667; there is no surviving information on the tartans they wore.
In the 1691 Jacobite poem The Grameid, James Philip of Almerieclose described Highland troops at the 1689 Battle of Killiecrankie being distinguishable by a number of factors, including colours of hose, of coats, and of tartans. While it is not always clear when he was referring to the miliamen and when he was more specifically describing the bedecked lords who led them, and he did not use the term "regimental tartan", "clan tartan", or anything similar, he did in places appear to be describing uniforms, and D. W. Stewart (1893) interprets them as such.Stewart, D. W. (1893), p. 22: "The Grameid, written in 1691, contains many references to the clothing and uniforms of the Highland army serving under Viscount Dundee." So does Scarlett (1990), who argues that it was both a matter of economy to produce a large quantity of the same cloth and a matter of commander pride to have troops in a uniform livery.Scarlett (1990), p. 13. Aside from the clan militias, however, a 1709 account by the Board of General Officers describes the independent companies as wearing Highland dress indistinguishable from that of civilians ("the better [to] discover any designs or machinations against the Government, or the country"), not uniforms.
In 1713, the Royal Company of Archers (first formed in 1676 as a private archery club, and later neither an independent company nor an army regiment, but a ceremonial company serving as royal bodyguards under a royal charter of 1704), became the first unit in service to the British crown who adopted a tartan as a part of their formal uniform. Their original red tartan, used for a dress-like tunic, coat, and matching short trews, was once unknown and subject to speculation;Innes of Learney (1971), pp. 10–11. It was quite complex, and period paintings (at least three, including one of the future George III) that attempt to illustrate it do not match.Telfer Dunbar (1979), pp. 80–81, plate 57, and front cover; citing: But from a few surviving examples of the uniform, in 2012 it was analysed in detail, in several variants (the original, a c. 1750 change that made it even more complex, and an 1850 simplified copy that was used to make a Victorian-era reconstruction of the outfit). The pattern appears to have influenced both the later Drummond of Strathallan and Ogilvie clan tartans. (In 1789, the company switched to new kit in Black Watch tartan, and ceased using tartan c. 1860–70.)
The chief of Clan Grant ordered in 1703 and again in 1704 that his "fencible" men, some 600 or so, obtain coats, trews, and hose of red and green tartan (described vaguely, and left to the men to furnish for themselves). Despite some writers interpreting the material as simply green and red, not necessarily of the exact same pattern in detail,Stewart, D. W. (1893), pp. 26–28.Telfer Dunbar (1979, p. 62. (Article first published on PanAlba.) MacKay (1924) provides some evidence of Grant militia wearing a consistent tartan by 1715, quoting a pamphlet (which other writers seem not to have examined) that wrote of Brigadier Grant's men as "orderly, ... well armed and clothed, in one livery of tartan".Mackay (1924), p. 50, at footnote.
The Independent Highland Companies came and went, but were re-raised 1725–29, from clans loyal to the British government, This is the updated website version of the book: "and numbers of young men of respectable family flocked to their ranks".Groves (1893): p. 2. Evidence suggests that at least some of these reconstituted militia forces wore uniform tartans, to avoid association with a particular location or clan. (One of their main duties was enforcing the Disarming Act 1715 by dispossessing clansmen of their weaponry.) The tartans possibly initially varied slightly among units under different commanding officers, but were of blue, black, and green, presumably with differencing over-checks (thin lines added to the design). Citing: They were all normalised to one tartan by no later than 1733Scarlett (1990), pp. 26–27. The period material is also quoted at length in: Telfer Dunbar (1979), p. 157. (a pattern which probably does not survive to the present day). A 1725 order of Maj.-Gen. George Wade reads: ""Scarlett (1990), p. 26. This was followed by correspondence in 1733 making it clear that all the units were using the same tartan cloth, confirmed further in payment accounts for the cloth.Telfer Dunbar (1979), p. 158.
A fairly complicated argument has been made that the c. 1769 portrait of an elderly Robert Grant of Lurg (d. 1771) features him dressed in the military garb of his youth and that it shows the tartan of the independent companies. The portrait exists in four versions, three of which show a tartan similar to Black Watch, but with a broad reddish-brown band (the fourth replaced the tartan with a completely different red-and-black one).
Additional loyalist independent companies or clan militias were raised in 1745, to fight against rebel clans during the Jacobite rising of that year, and continued to 1747; they did not wear a uniform tartan, but did wear a uniform badge in the form of a black Hanoverian cockade with red or yellow saltire on the bonnet.Telfer Dunbar (1979), pp. 19, 163–164, quoting two articles (titles not specified) by I. H. Mackay Scobie in the Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, 1941 and 1946.
Between c. 1739 and the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, over 100 battalions of line, fencible, militia, and volunteer regiments were to be raised in or predominantly in the Highlands,Telfer Dunbar (1979), p. 10. a substantial proportion of them in Highland dress; of these units, only some had distinct uniform tartans, and of those, only a small number were recorded to the present day.
Early regiments
The six originalBarnes & Allen (1956): p. 51. and four additional Independent Highland Companies were amalgamated in 1739 to become the Earl of Crawford's Highland Regiment, 43rd (later 42nd) Regiment of Foot, informally called the Black Watch (a name which became official in 1881, but may have dated to the independent company period).Telfer Dunbar (1979), pp. 156–157. It was the first proper governmental Highland regiment, part of the British Army, and they wore the belted plaid ("great kilt") for dress, and (since at least as early as 1759)Telfer Dunbar (1979), pp. 180–181, citing: Citing in turn the regiment's own order books, originally reproduced in The Red Hackle in October 1935. the tailored small kilt for undress uniform.Campbell, J. F. (1862), p. 376.
For the former garment,Telfer Dunbar (1979), p. 178, relying on Mackay Scobie. they used a distinctive tartan, which was designed for the unit.Groves (1893): p. 3. It was originally called the "42nd tartan", so it probably was not adopted until the unit was renumbered the 42nd in 1749, and possibly not created until as late as 1757.Scarlett (1990), p. 30. It seems likely that the tartan was based on those used by the independent units earlier, but with double black "tram line" over-checks added.Scarlett (1990), pp. 29–30. A simple line-art illustration of 1742 shows the 42nd's belted plaid worn, quite unusually, with the tartan set diagonally ("on the bias") to form diamonds instead of squares;Campbell, J. F. (1862), p. 377. while this could have been artistic license, there is another drawing from 1742 that shows the same,Telfer Dunbar (1979), pp. 166–167, plate 39. but a third illustration from c. 1743 shows it worn with stripes horizontal and vertical.Telfer Dunbar (1979), p. 167, plates 41, 42.
The Black Watch pattern was used by various other regiments, and it has been estimated that to clothe them all, some of the tartan had to be woven before 1750 alone. It became the basis of various later regimental (and eventually clan) tartans. It remains popular in general-public use under the names "Black Watch", "Government", and several others, but today officially called "Government No. 1" by the military.
The sett of the 42nd Regiment's original small-kilt tartan is not entirely certain, but it is believed to have had a red over-check added over the blue, the green, or probably both; it is sometimes called "the Atholl sett". The best candidate for it appears in a Wilsons of Bannockburn record of 1785 (and was still in their Key Pattern Book in 1819 as "42nd Coarse Kilt with Red"); there is no surviving evidence to place it earlier, despite claims that it dates to c. 1750.Scarlett (1990), pp. 26–28. It was used for the 42nd's small kilts until the belted plaid was abandoned c. 1814, after which the unit used their regular belted-plaid Black Watch tartan for the small kilt. Grenadiers of the regiment used this red-striped version also in their belted plaid. It survives in a uniforms illustration by David Morier c. 1751–1760, though the details are difficult to make out.