The evidence of the early date of this design rests entirely upon specimens in collections of old hard tartans. Diligent research reveals no portrait in Highland costume of a member of the clan, whose leading representatives, moreover, are without any account of the origin either of this pattern or of another bearing the same name and differing from it mainly in the omission of the white stripe. From the collation of many authorities and the inspection of many samples, however, the conclusion has been reached that of the two the design here represented is the earlier. It is preserved in a collection of examples of tartans made by the Highland Society of London in 1822; in that of Messrs Ogilvie & Co., Edinburgh, dealers in tartan about the same period; in that of The Mackintosh at Moy Hall, and in many others.
V. DAVIDSON