NTS catch up with the facts on the Tartan Ban myth

[figheadair]

Good to see the recently published article on the NTS website entitled Was Tartan Really Banned . I've been arguing with them for several years that the text in the exhibition saying that tartan was banned after the'45 was incorrect. They have always argued that the wording was ambiguous. I sent them my paper Tartan Ban - Fact or Myth a couple of years ago, looks like they now agree with the arguments.

[Jock Scot]

Well done Peter and thank you.

[GrymJack]

Thanks for the information, I really enjoyed reading it. It is not hard to see how in a time of widespread illiteracy that the original Act information became altered. I suspect that to many on the winning side the tartan was in fact the core of the Highland dress and deliberately, consciously or not, set out to destroy it. Fairly sucsessfully I might add. It is also interesting that the Act applied to those who supported the winners as well,

[Stoff]

Here is where my old time training on the spirit of the law vs. the letter of the law raises it's ugly head. The letter of the law may not have been and outright ban of the tartan but, the spirit of the law was a ban. In your paper you point out how the ban on traditional clothes ended up in the loss of techniques and patterns of weaving and that once it was legal again many could not afford to return to traditional dress. So the English conquerors and occupiers managed to ban tartan for men at least, to effectively ban the production of fabric in the weights appropriate to the manufacture of men's clothing. The idea here was to attempt to eliminate a culture and they nearly succeeded.

[The Q]

Here is where my old time training on the spirit of the law vs. the letter of the law raises it's ugly head. The letter of the law may not have been and outright ban of the tartan but, the spirit of the law was a ban. In your paper you point out how the ban on traditional clothes ended up in the loss of techniques and patterns of weaving and that once it was legal again many could not afford to return to traditional dress. So the English conquerors and occupiers managed to ban tartan for men at least, to effectively ban the production of fabric in the weights appropriate to the manufacture of men's clothing. The idea here was to attempt to eliminate a culture and they nearly succeeded.

What English Conquerors and occupiers?
The Parliament that represented the that instituted the ban was made up of Welsh, English and Scots MPs.
The British army that Defeated the Jabobite's, was made up of Welsh, English, Irish, Hanoverians and Scots. They cannot conquer, what they already had control of Since 1707 and the Scots army long before that.
The battles were over WHO should Rule, Not over which country should Rule, Since both sides Claimed to represent the Whole of Britain. Had the Jacobite won, Charles would have gone to London and ruled from there. He wanted Britain not just Scotland

Both sides included Scots and Gaels, it was a British Civil war including different percentages of British peoples, plus some Hanoverians, on the government side, the French and Irish , on the Jacobite side.

[Jock Scot]

I am not sure how true it is/was, but it was always said by those that probably know whats what up here in the Highlands that more Scots fought on the British side at Culloden than fought with the Jacobite army.

Taken by me at Culloden a few years ago.

[figheadair]

Here is where my old time training on the spirit of the law vs. the letter of the law raises it's ugly head. The letter of the law may not have been and outright ban of the tartan but, the spirit of the law was a ban. In your paper you point out how the ban on traditional clothes ended up in the loss of techniques and patterns of weaving and that once it was legal again many could not afford to return to traditional dress. So the English conquerors and occupiers managed to ban tartan for men at least, to effectively ban the production of fabric in the weights appropriate to the manufacture of men's clothing. The idea here was to attempt to eliminate a culture and they nearly succeeded.

The incorrect reference to English conquerors has already been mentioned. Regarding that banning of tartan, it was not banned for men, just for civilian use and even then, the Hanoverian gentry seem to have ignored it. Given that miles of tartan would have been required for the various regiments means that the idea that tartan was effectively banned is erroneous. Later the army cloth production was moved to the Lowland (Bannockburn) so it was the socio-economic changes, including the later Clearances, that the lead to the loss of the weaving traditions and techniques in the Highlands.