It’s
not often that the goings on in the world of tartan make it into the main
stream press, even in Scotland, but this July was an exception. On 10 July,
2007, the Scotsman newspaper ran an article by John Ross on the
proposed National Tartan Register that MSP Jamie McGrigor has been promoting
for some time. It looks like it may actually come to pass in the near
future, as was also reported in the Banner last month.
Ross’s article quoted extensively from Brian Wilton, director of the
Scottish Tartans Authority (STA), and it looks like the new Register will be
making ample use of the STA’s own International Tartan Index. Ross
describes it as the “register in waiting” and with over 4,500 unique tartan
designs (and growing) it is certainly the industry standard.
The
Scottish Executive (the administrative branch of the Scottish Government)
has proposed that the National Tartan Register be in place by the spring of
2008. According to Wilton, the STA has been asked to provide a copy of its
Index as the basis for the National Register. The new Register will be
supervised by the Lord Lyon and administered by the National Archives of
Scotland who will use the STA on a consultancy basis.
As of
this writing, a committee is set to meet on August 14th in
Edinburgh to begin sorting out the details of exactly how this will all work
in practice. I communicated with Brian Wilton, who will serve as the STA’s
representative on that committee. “There are very many details to discuss,”
he stated, “and I will be working, not only to secure an efficient
administrative routine for the new register, but also to safeguard the long
term investment that we have put into these valuable records and, just as
importantly, to safeguard the interests of our worldwide membership.”
People across the globe can currently view the tartans that make up the
International Tartan Index on the STA’s web site,
www.tartansauthority.com. Basic information is available free to the
public, with more detailed information reserved for STA members. Membership
is open not only to those in the tartan business, but also to any interested
individual.
As I
read the Scotsman article on the internet, I was intrigued by the
various on-line comments that other readers had added. It seems that many,
even in Scotland, were under the assumption that some kind of national
register of tartan was already in place. “Doesn’t the Lord Lyon already
handle this?” seemed to be the common reaction.
In
fact, the Lord Lyon has never had any jurisdiction over tartan. The Lyon
Court deals in matters of heraldry, and (as has been discussed in a previous
column), tartan is not heraldic. As is stated on the Lord Lyon’s own web
site, “The Lord Lyon has no jurisdiction over tartan but if a clan chief
wishes, the Lord Lyon will record details of specific clan tartan in the
Lyon Records.”
The
Scottish Tartans Authority itself has only been in existence since 1996. It
was formed by former members of the Scottish Tartans Society (no longer
active), which began itself in 1963 with the goal of maintaining a Register
of Publicly Known Tartans. Having reached over 2600 tartans by its closing
in the year 2000, the Society register was the most complete at the time.
Prior
to the formation of that register, there was no central index for tartans,
and one had to seek out private collections or look to books for information
on specific tartan designs. One such book that is still a standard
reference for many is D. C. Stewart’s The Setts of the Scottish Tartans,
originally published in 1950 with 266 tartans included. D. C. was himself
building on his father, D. W. Stewart’s, work. The elder Stewart had
published the landmark Old and Rare Scottish Tartans in 1893,
containing 45 designs specially selected for the rarity or age.
Private collections also existed, many of which were utilized in researching
books such as the ones mentioned above. One of the largest was that of John
McGregor Hastie, who between 1930 and 1950 amassed a monumental collection
of over 960 tartans. This would later form the bulk of the Scottish Tartans
Society’s archives. Perhaps the earliest private collection was that of
Gen. Sir William Cockburn of Cockburn, who collected tartans from 1810 to
1815. His collection provides us with the oldest samples that we have for
many tartans.
The
first corporate attempt at creating a “master database” of tartans came
about in 1815 by the Highland Society of London (of which Cockburn was a
member). The Highland Society was an early Scots ex-patriat club (similar
to St. Andrews Societies and Caledonia Clubs that are found in various
countries today). Col. Alisdair MacDonnell of Glengarry, on behalf of the
Highland Society, simply urged all of the Scottish clan chiefs to submit to
them a sample of what they accepted as their clan tartan.
This
set a very important precedent. For what makes a tartan “official” is not
whether it is recorded in some database somewhere. That merely provides a
record of the tartan. It is the chief of the clan who has the jurisdiction
over his or her tartan. Only the chief can say what is and is not an
official tartan for the clan.
The
problem today is that the number of tartans has grown tremendously. In
1819, Wilsons of Bannockburn, the major producer of tartan cloth, had about
100 named tartans in their pattern book. That’s a far cry from the
thousands that are to be found in the STA’s International Tartan Index
today! There are clan tartans, district tartans, family tartans, private
tartans, corporate tartans, commemorative tartans – you name it!
The
need is clear. The number and popularity of tartans has grown beyond what
can conceivably be maintained in private collections. As the details of the
National Register are worked out, look for updated information in this
space.
