History of the kilt

A description from 1746 states:[4] The garb is certainly very loose, and fits men inured to it to go through great fatigues, to make very quick marches, to bear out against the inclemency of the weather, to wade through rivers, and shelter in huts, woods, and rocks upon occasion; which men dressed in the low country garb could not possibly endure.For battle, it was customary to take off the plaid beforehand and set it aside, the Highland charge being made wearing only the léine croich or war shirt, a knee-length shirt of leather, linen, or canvas, heavily pleated and sometimes quilted as protection.

[7] A letter written by Ivan Baillie in 1768 and published in the Edinburgh Magazine in March 1785 states that the garment people would recognize as a kilt today was invented in the 1720s by Thomas Rawlinson, a Quaker from Lancashire.

[8] Maj. H. R. Duff (1815) repeated the story, in short form, as fact in his Culloden Papers,[9] and Sir Walter Scott (1816) agreed with him in a review of the book.

[10] David Stewart of Garth (1825) wrote of the story as being unsubstantiated, and "one of the arguments brought forward by some modern authors, to prove that the Highland garb is of recent introduction.

[18] John Telfer Dunbar (1979) takes the letter at face value,[19] and Hugh Trevor-Roper (1983) accepts it without much question,[8] relying on it heavily in a later posthumous volume (2008).

[20] Banks & de La Chapelle (2007) label the story a "legend", accept the location, then suggest that the workers themselves may have invented the short kilt.

[21] Murray Pittock (2010) wrote that "it is ... ridiculous to suppose that an English Quaker industrialist could determine the sartorial priorities of ... a national culture" and that the story was characterised by "easy vehemence and lack of either rigour or depth".

[26] Mackay further suggests Scottish coats of arms published in 1659 and 1673 show supporters in small kilts,[27] and A. Campbell (1899) did likewise,[28] as did Innes of Learney;[29] Dunbar again offered a conflicting opinion.

[30] Mackay also quoted c. 1715 Scots Jacobite songs that specifically mentioned the "philabeg",[31] and mid-17th-century sources that seem to treat the plaid and kilt as separate garments.

[34] A 1677 account by one Thomas Kirk of Yorkshire described Scotsmen wearing "a sort of breeches, not unlike a petticoat, that reaches not so low, by far, as their knees. ...

[35] Mackay raised a point of logic: Since the belted plaid was made of two pieces of tartan cloth stitched together to provide the necessary top-to-bottom span, "It is surely too great a strain upon our credulity to ask us to believe" that no one before Rawlinson ever thought to use the lower one by itself.

[37] All of the above is typical of the long-running debate, with different authors (often with unkind words for the opposition) offering their opinions and some evidence, with neither viewpoint clearly having the evidentiary upper-hand.

Professor and museum curator Hugh Cheape wrote of the dispute: "Such a debate has tended to be circular, without adding much more than value judgement to our knowledge of Highland dress.

The kilt, along with other features of Gaelic culture, had become identified with Jacobitism, and now that this had ceased to be a real danger it was viewed with romantic nostalgia.

In the aftermath of that rebellion the Government decided to form more Highland regiments for the army in order to direct the energies of Gaels, that "hardy and intrepid race of men".

[43] In doing so, they formed effective new army regiments to send to fight in India, North America, and other locations while lowering the possibility of rebellion at home.

Army uniforms were exempt from the ban on wearing kilts in the Dress Act, and as a means of identification, the regiments were given different tartans.

However, on D-Day, June 1944, Lord Lovat, commander of 1 Special Service Brigade, was accompanied by his personal piper Bill Millin, who wore a kilt– and played the bagpipes – while German bullets whizzed around him.

The kilt is utilized in the modern full-dress uniforms for multiple active Scottish regiments of the British Army who have some affiliation with Scotland.