Who Invented the Kilt, and When? The Rawlinson Story and What Really Happened

Nobody invented the kilt in one go. The original kilt, the belted plaid or great kilt, grew out of Highland dress over the 1500s, and no single person can take the credit. The shorter kilt we wear today is sometimes said to have been invented in the 1720s by Thomas Rawlinson, an English Quaker ironmaster working in the Highlands. That story is real, in the sense that it was written down in the 1700s, but historians have argued about it ever since, and there's good evidence the short kilt was being worn before he ever arrived.

So the fair answer is: the Highlanders invented the kilt, and Rawlinson may have helped popularise one version of it. Below we go through both parts, the evidence on each side, and why the story became such a sore point in Scotland.

The Short Answer

So there isn't one date either. The kilt was "invented" in stages, over roughly 250 years.

When Was the Kilt Invented? A Quick Timeline

If you just want the dates, the kilt in its first form goes back to the 1500s, and the knee-length kilt we'd recognise today dates from around 1700. Here are the key moments.

That's the short version. The longer story, with the ban, the regiments and the Victorians, is in our history of the kilt. The rest of this post is about the "who".

The First Kilt: Nobody's Invention

The earliest kilt was the belted plaid, a huge piece of tartan wool pleated by hand, belted at the waist and thrown over the shoulder. It seems to have developed slowly during the 1500s, as the Highland cloak got bigger and people started belting it. The first clear written description comes from 1594. You can read the whole story of it on our great kilts page.

No one person "invented" the belted plaid, any more than one person invented trousers. It was a practical solution that grew out of the Highland climate and way of life, and it was worn across the Highlands for well over a century before the shorter kilt came along.

The Small Kilt and Thomas Rawlinson

Who Was Thomas Rawlinson?

Thomas Rawlinson was born in 1669 into a family of Quaker ironmasters from the Furness area of Lancashire. After the 1715 Jacobite rising, the government opened up the Highlands to outside business, and Rawlinson became managing partner of an iron furnace at Invergarry, near Fort William. The furnace needed huge amounts of charcoal, made from the local woods, which were leased from the chief of the MacDonells of Glengarry. Rawlinson died in 1737, not long after the furnace closed.

The Story as It Was Told

According to the story, Rawlinson noticed that his Highland workmen, felling trees and tending furnaces in their belted plaids, found the full plaid cumbersome and unwieldy for that kind of work. So he decided to shorten it. Working with the tailor of the army regiment stationed at Inverness, he had the lower half of the plaid made up as a separate garment with the pleats already sewn in.

Rawlinson is said to have worn it himself, and so did his business partner, the Glengarry chief. His clansmen followed, and the new short kilt spread from there.

Where the Story Comes From

Everything we know comes from one source: a letter by Ivan (or Evan) Baillie of Abereachan, a Highland gentleman. It was written in 1768 and published in the Edinburgh Magazine in March 1785. That's roughly 40 years after the events it describes, and nearly 60 by the time it was printed.

Why Many Historians Doubt It

• It's one late source. As early as 1914, writers pointed out how suspicious it was that the story only appeared half a century after the supposed invention.
• The short kilt seems to be older. Highlanders appear to have worn just the lower half of the plaid before Rawlinson arrived. A coat of arms of the Skene family from 1692 shows a man in a short kilt, and Jacobite songs from around 1715 already mention the "philabeg", the short kilt.
• Rawlinson's own papers don't mention it. The Scottish musicologist John Purser reported in 2020 that there's no evidence for the story in Rawlinson's detailed surviving papers.
• There may have been a motive. Some historians suspect the letter was written to undermine the kilt at a time when there were moves to stop Highland regiments wearing it. Calling it an Englishman's workwear idea was a handy way to say it wasn't truly Scottish.

Some critics were blunt. The historian Mackay called it a myth in 1924, and Sir Thomas Innes of Learney, later Lord Lyon, described it as a "wretched story".

Why Some Historians Believe It

It's not quite that simple, though. When the letter was published in 1785, nobody at the time seems to have contradicted it, and some leading writers on Scottish customs accepted it. The costume historian John Telfer Dunbar took it at face value in his well-known history of Highland dress, and the historian Hugh Trevor-Roper relied on it heavily in an influential 1983 essay.

A reasonable middle view, and roughly where we land, is this: Highlanders were probably already wearing just the bottom half of the plaid by the late 1600s, at least sometimes. Rawlinson may well have had kilts made up with the pleats ready-sewn for his workers, and that may have helped the idea catch on. But that's not the same as inventing the kilt.

Why the Argument Got So Heated

The Rawlinson story became much more than a footnote in the 20th century. Trevor-Roper's 1983 essay, part of a famous book called The Invention of Tradition, argued that much of "traditional" Highland culture, including the short kilt and clan tartans, was more recent and less authentic than Scots liked to think. The idea that an Englishman invented the kilt was a sharp part of that argument.

Unsurprisingly, a lot of Scots didn't take kindly to it, and later writers accused Trevor-Roper of being far too ready to believe a convenient story. The argument is partly about history and partly about national pride, which is why you'll still find strong opinions on both sides online.

Our take: it's true that a lot of Highland dress was shaped, standardised and romanticised in the 1700s and 1800s. That doesn't make it fake. Traditions change over time, and the kilt is no less Scottish for having evolved.

Who Gave Us the Modern Tailored Kilt?

Even the Rawlinson-style small kilt wasn't quite the kilt you'd buy today. The fully tailored kilt, with pleats sewn and shaped to the waist, a flat front apron, and buckles, was developed by kiltmakers and military tailors later in the 1700s and into the 1800s. The Highland regiments played a big part, as they needed kilts that were neat, uniform and hard-wearing.

The oldest surviving tailored kilt dates from around 1796, and it's in the collection of the Scottish Tartans Authority. So if anyone "invented" the kilt you'd wear to a wedding now, it was really generations of anonymous tailors. If you're curious how that craft works today, we walk through it in how a kilt is made.

So, Who Invented the Kilt?

Put simply:

• The belted plaid was developed by Highland Scots over the 1500s, with no single inventor.
• The small kilt grew out of it in the late 1600s and early 1700s. Thomas Rawlinson may have helped spread a sewn version, but the claim that he invented it is disputed and probably overstated.
• The tailored kilt was refined by kiltmakers and military tailors from the late 1700s.

The kilt is a Scottish garment that evolved over 300 years. If you want to know more about the garment itself, start with what a kilt is, or see why it means so much in why Scottish men wear kilts. And if you'd rather just wear one, our tartan kilts come in hundreds of clan and district tartans.

Who Invented the Kilt? FAQs

Did an Englishman invent the kilt?

Not the original kilt. The claim is that an Englishman, Thomas Rawlinson, invented the short kilt in the 1720s, but historians dispute it.

Who was Thomas Rawlinson?

An English Quaker ironmaster from Lancashire who ran an iron furnace at Invergarry in the Highlands in the late 1720s and 1730s.

Is the Rawlinson kilt story true?

Partly, maybe. The short kilt probably existed before him, but he may have had sewn versions made for his workers.

Where does the Rawlinson story come from?

A letter by Ivan Baillie of Abereachan, written in 1768 and published in the Edinburgh Magazine in 1785.

Who invented the great kilt?

No one person. It developed gradually among Highland Scots during the 1500s.

When was the short kilt first worn?

Probably by the late 1600s. Images and songs from around 1692 to 1715 seem to show or mention it.

When was the kilt invented?

The great kilt dates from the 1500s and was first clearly described in 1594. The short kilt we know today dates from around 1700.

What is the oldest surviving kilt?

The oldest surviving tailored kilt dates from around 1796 and is held by the Scottish Tartans Authority.

Why do some people say the kilt is an invented tradition?

Mainly because of Hugh Trevor-Roper's 1983 essay, which argued that much of Highland dress was created or reshaped in the 1700s and 1800s.

Is the kilt really Scottish?

Yes. Whatever you think of the Rawlinson story, the kilt developed in the Scottish Highlands and has been worn there for over 400 years.