www.clanlivingstone.info

Hi all,

There is a post on Matthew Newsome's blog about tartans that may be of great interest to us who are interested in the history of our clan tartans and Scottish tartans in general:

http://kiltmaker.blogspot.com/2010/09/o ... urces.html

Please take a look--they are scanning, for free, out of print and rare historical documents about the Scottish tartans! I encourage anyone with a little time to see if there is anything of use to us in those documents!

Kyle=

I have been watching the scans for the past several weeks. I haven't see any MacLea, Livingstone or Livingston tartans from the old books yet. Matt does have several articals posted at the Scottish Tartans Museum site that are a great resource for those that are interested in the history. From what I've seen, he seems to be interested in historical facts and research to know what is right and not just rumor.

Yeah, we were under the impression that the 'sources' of the Livingston(e) tartans were later than the ones he is scanning... but it is worth looking at regardless. Perhaps similar non-Livingston tartans will lead us to some knowledge of where the sett came from.

Kyle=

There does not appear to be any "ancient" swatch out there in the early 19th century collections of an 18th or even early 19th century highland Livingstone or Maclea tartan. No doubt someone in Scotland will attempt to go through some of the original collections in libraries and museums there but from my own research of them they wont likely find anything. To the best of my knowledge there are a couple of pattern variations of red green and black weave one of which appeared in Glasgow Librarian Robert Bain's Clan and Tartan book in the 1920's or 1930's. This tartan that Robert Bain used for the Livingston tartan was one which was based apparently on a swatch from a popular tartan used by Livingston at the time which closely enough resembles what is now I think referred to as 1003 or something like that. As far as the Tartan books which feature a Livingston tartan go they most just refer to Robert Bain who was responsible for one of two authorative tartan books that came out in the 1930's.

My sense if that 1003 with its distinctive red green and black weave was actually one of few that may have been developed all reasonably similar in the period of the late 1800's to early 1900's before Bains book was published but as no one has done a documented history of our main tartan from this earlier time this is largely speculation on my part. I seem to recall there was an illustration of our red green and black tartan in a popular Scottish tartan book published as early as 1906 but I would have to check on that.

The question in my mind is what tartan did old Donald Livingstone hero of Culloden wear in his old age and what tartan did our highland livingstone kin wear in the early and mid 1800's in Western Argyll in the highland Livingstone heartland? I wish I could I tell you more. Clearly our most popular tartan 1003 with its weave of red, green and black seems perhaps inspired by a district tartan worn by one of the clans at Culloden to my mind. Some say it is reminisence of an old MacDonnell tartan.

regards,

Donald