Having trouble identifying this tartan

[doctorg]

Hi. A friend of mine got this second-hand kilt (his first) today but I'm not sure what it is. Maybe 74th Regiment of Foot or Forbes (I can't tell those two apart). Could someone assist, please? Many thanks.

[Highland Logan]

Forbes
https://www.tartanregister.gov.uk/qR...hString=Forbes

74th Regiment of Foot
https://www.tartanregister.gov.uk/qR...nt%20of%20Foot

Frank

[figheadair]

Hi. A friend of mine got this second-hand kilt (his first) today but I'm not sure what it is. Maybe 74th Regiment of Foot or Forbes (I can't tell those two apart). Could someone assist, please? Many thanks.

It's the same tartan.

[OC Richard]

Wow the Forbes/Lamont/74th Foot/Highland Light Infantry/Mrs Forbes of Pitsligo rabbit-hole is as bad as the Caledonia/MacPherson/Kidd one!

About the 74th Foot, they wore the Government sett (Black Watch) from their raising to having their Highland Dress taken away in 1809. In 1845 they were granted trews and plaid of Lamont tartan.

The pipers were in civilian-style full-tartan livery with Lamont tartan coatee, kilt, and plaid.



Seems that due to their 1881 amalgamation the 74th (now 2/HLI) switched from Lamont to MacKenzie tartan.

From what I see their tartan was simply the Government sett with a stripe of the 74th's facing-colour, white, identical to the process that created the Gordon tartan. The odd thing is that Lamont pre-dates the 74th's grant of Highland Dress, in 1845.

About Forbes, evidently there are/were two Forbes tartans, one like Lamont, the other lacking the distinctive Black Watch alternating double-track motif.

I'm sure Peter has it all sorted!

[plaid preacher]

Wow the Forbes/Lamont/74th Foot/Highland Light Infantry/Mrs Forbes of Pitsligo rabbit-hole is as bad as the Caledonia/MacPherson/Kidd one!

About the 74th Foot, they wore the Government sett (Black Watch) from their raising to having their Highland Dress taken away in 1809. In 1845 they were granted trews and plaid of Lamont tartan.

The pipers were in civilian-style full-tartan livery with Lamont tartan coatee, kilt, and plaid.



Seems that due to their 1881 amalgamation the 74th (now 2/HLI) switched from Lamont to MacKenzie tartan.

From what I see their tartan was simply the Government sett with a stripe of the 74th's facing-colour, white, identical to the process that created the Gordon tartan. The odd thing is that Lamont pre-dates the 74th's grant of Highland Dress, in 1845.

About Forbes, evidently there are/were two Forbes tartans, one like Lamont, the other lacking the distinctive Black Watch alternating double-track motif.

I'm sure Peter has it all sorted!

Richard - as a wearer of the Lamont tartan I have come to learn it is a very subtle difference indeed. Forbes has to two black tracings on their side of the white stripe, while in the Lamont the white stripe stands alone. From a distance (and often in photos on auction sites) they are almost indistinguishable.

Too bad the OP does not have a photo of the tartan in question. I'm sure then we could put a finer point on the pencil.

[Tobus]

Too bad the OP does not have a photo of the tartan in question. I'm sure then we could put a finer point on the pencil.

This seems to be a recurring problem on this forum. Users attach photos but they don't show up in the post. They only exist as attachments that can be seen from the forum page. If you click on the paperclip icons next to the thread title on the index page, it will pop up a window with the file names which can be opened.

I don't know if this is just a forum bug or if it's just not very user-friendly for people to figure out how to get their photos into their threads, but it happens all the time. Wish we could fix that.

Anyway, I saved the OP's photos and have inserted them here. This is the tartan in question.

[OC Richard]

Richard - as a wearer of the Lamont tartan I have come to learn it is a very subtle difference indeed. Forbes has to two black tracings on their side of the white stripe, while in the Lamont the white stripe stands alone.

In the early sources it's not quite so cut-and-dried as that.

In Setts Of The Scottish Tartans the author states that prior to 1822 the version without the black border to the white line had been labelled both Lamont and Forbes, and that prior to 1822 the version with the black border to the white line had been labelled both Lamont and Forbes. The author states:

"This, then, invalidates the story of one of them having been designed by Miss Forbes of Pitsligo, and shows that the slight distinction now made between the two originally had no significance."

I read somewhere that a weaver might, at their own discretion, add black border to a light line in any given tartan to make the light line stand out better.

[figheadair]

The Lamont was included in the Cockburn Collection (1810-15) and Highland Society of London's Collection in 1817, the Forbes in neither.

[OC Richard]

The Lamont was included in the Cockburn Collection (1810-15) and Highland Society of London's Collection in 1817, the Forbes in neither.

Do either of those "Lamont" tartans have the black flanking lines?

I have no idea which (if either) of those two collections DC Stewart is referencing when he says

"In a collection made some years before 1822 two specimens appear under the name of Lamont, and they conform to the two setts we distinguish as Lamont and Forbes."


Or is Stewart incorrect? Does Lamont with the black flanking lines not appear until after 1822?

Do we have two different Forbes appearing between 1822 and 1831?

1) Lamont with black flanking lines to the white stripe.

2) Lamont with black flanking lines to the white stripe, and lacking the Black Watch alternating double-track lines (Logan 1831).

Or is Logan's Forbes not like that?

[doctorg]

Thanks for the very detailed reply. At this stage it seems to be a Lamont, from the many comments on a Facebook group. Very close to Forbes.