Figure 1.-- This Scottish cabinet card portrait shows the four siblings: Jeanie, David, Annie and Johnston Kilgour. They range in age from 6-18 years old. The girls wear similar, but not identical white dresses. They are 9 and 18 years old. Usually there is more difference in the dress styling for girls with such an age gap. Their hair has waves. The younger girl has a small hair bow. The boys wear similar kilt outfits with Eton collars, but there are differences. The boys are 6 and 13 years old. David, the younger boy, wears an Eton jacket. His older brother has a lapel jacket. Their vests and neckwear are also different. The jackets and vests are done in the same flannel-looking material, but their kilts have a different tartan.

Our archive of Scottish family images is still very limited. For some reason we only have found images of Sottish families for the early-20th century and most seem to be well-established families. We are not bure just why this is. Most of the boys are wearing suits. Several of the boys in these families, but not all, are wearing various kill outfits. We believe that this would have been less common among working-class families. Some of the kilt and other suits may be school uniforms, but this is difficult to tell. We also see knicker, short pants, anf lon pants outfits as well as kilts. Some of the pages include school images. Some well-to-do Scottish families seem to have chosen families in England. One nobel family chose Eton for the boys.

The 1900s

Glasgow Family (early-1900s)

This cabinet card portrait shows an unidentified Glasgow family with three sons. The boys look to be about 9-15 years old. They wear identical matching single breasted vested knickers suits. The material looks like tweed. Their white collars are not the classic, pointed Eton collars which were widely worn at the time. The seem to have rounded tips. They do seem to be etachable collars. The boys seem to be wearing knee socks rather than long stockings with their knickers. In America boys for the most part were wearing long stockings. We thought at first that they may be wearing school uniforms. The banded knee socks came to be called school socks. We suspect that their parents simply decided to purchase identical outfits for the boys. One factor here is that given their ages, the boys probably would have not attended the same school. And there small differences in the ties and socks which hint that the outfits are not school uniform. Although in Scotland there were accademies which dealt with wider age ranges than the private schools in England. In England they were called colleges, but there were not very many. (Do not confuse this with the American usage of a tertiary educational institution.) We are not sure how to date the portrait. The mother's blouse looks like a 1890s style with the baloon sleeves. The cabinet card mount looks to us like the 1900s decade. (Here we are going on the color, a kind of green grey. Unfortunatly because of our small Scottish archive we are going more on our knowledge of American mount trends. We may revise out date assessment as our Scottish archive grows. We think that we can safely say that it is a turn-of-the century image. Wether it falls on the 1890s or 1900s side we are not yet positive. A reader expresses surprise that the boys are not wearing kilts. It should be remembered that Glasgow was an industrial city is set in the Lowlands where kilts were much less common than in the Highlands.

Glasgow Family: The Kilgour Children (1903)

This Scottish cabinet card portrait shows the four siblings: Jeanie, David, Annie and Johnston Kilgour. They range in age from 6-18 years old. The girls wear similar, but not identical white dresses. They are 9 and 18 years old. Usually there is more difference in the dress styling for girls with such an age gap. Their hair has waves. The younger girl has a small hair bow. The boys wear similar kilt outfits with Eton collars, but there are differences. The boys are 6 and 13 years old. David, the younger boy, wears an Eton jacket. His older brother has a lapel jacket. Their vests and neckwear are also different. The jackets and vests are done in the same flanel-looking material and their kilts are done in the same tartan. They have faux-buckle strap shoes. The portrait was taken during September 1903. The studio was John Weir in Glasgow. The mount was a greyish green, a popular color for the new style mounts. The mount itself is a mix of new and old style mounts.

Glasgow Family (1904)

This unidentified family portrait on the previous page was taken in 1904. It was taken by C. Swwet and published by the Glasgow Photo-Engraving Company (figure 1). We assume the compny was located in Scotland, but we are not sure. The family has a bit of an American look to us. The print dealer handling this image tells us that it was definitely published in the United Kingdom, so it seems it was probably Scottish. The children wear white frocks, the older ones with black long stockings. Their hair is done similarly, one with a large hair bow. The hair seems more British than American. American children were more likely to have their hair done in tight ringlets than the looser ringlets seen here. Unfortunately the family and children are not identified. The children are probably girls, but we are not at all sure. Mother also wears a light-colored dress, but much longer and with extensive detailing.

Scottish Military Family (1909)

Here we see a British soldier and his four sons, all dressed alike. I am not positive, but I think the father is an enlisted man. The family is unidentified, but the Glengary caps strongly suggest that they are Scottish. The portrait was taken in 1909. A reader suggests that the boys are wearing a school military uniform, but Britain did not have military schools for children as was the case in America. Militry schools are an important part of private education in Americam quite a number of private boarding schools in America are military schools. This is not the case in Britain. An exception was a few orphanage-like schools for the children of enlistd men. I think the children were simply all dressed alike, a not uncommon convention at the time. Notice the metal buckle on the military belt that the boys all wear, that does give a uniform look to the boys' outfits. Notice that they are worn over their sweaters--meaning there was no practical purpose for the belts. There appears to be interesting age-grading in this photo. Only the youngest boy, about 6, wears short socks with his knee pants. The older boys who seem to range from about 8 to 10 or 11 all wear black long stockings. Apparently it was considered improper for boys older than 6 to have exposed knees. Notice the Eton collars.

Unidentified Young Family (late-1900s)

Here we have a wonderful picture of a young Scottish family. Unfortunately there is no information associated with the image. Thus we can only work with what we see in the image. The photograph is not dated, but looks to us like the late-1900s or early-1910s, surely before World War I. We see four children very close in age, probably about 3-9 years in age. Because of the wooden beach sand shovels, we are guessing they are on vacation, although the background building does not suggest a vacation spot. The clothing does suggest a prosperous family that would take vacations. The charming aspect of the photograph is how they are hiolding on to each other, clearly a tight-knit little group. The expressions on the children's faces suggest to us that the photograph was taken by some kind of intinerate photographer rather than father. Notice the younger boy's expression. We would guess that the photograph was taken some place in the Highlands along the coast or even on one of the islands. The teo younger children (a boy and a girl) wear sailor dresses. The boy wears a standard sailor hat. The girl wears an unsuual cap. The two boys wear identical cut-away jackets and kilt outfits. One boy wears a peaked cap with his kilt outfit. The two kilted boys seem to be wearing knee pants or long drawers with their kilts as does the girl with her sailor dress. While the boys have smart Scottish outfits complere with stiff Eton collars and bowties, they do not have sporahns, even small leather ones.

The 1910s

Prosperous Glasgow Family: The Lennox's (1910s)

This is a wonderful image from the past. It was taken in Scotland at C. Mitchell photographic studio in Glasgow. The two boys are both dressed in Highland kilt outfits. They have Glengary caps with eagle feathers, ather smnall Eton collars, bow ties, cut-away jackets, Kilts, sporrans, knee socks (I think Argyles), and sandals with mock buckles. This is ine of numerous images showing that boys in well-to-to families dressed up in kilts for formal occassions such as a portrait. What we are less sure about is how these boys dressed for more cassual activities, such as play, casual outings, family dinner, and school. Unfortunately we do not know their first names. As can be seen, the original board was trimmed at one point, probably it was in a frame at one time. We do know that they were 9 and 12 years old. On the back, the first names in the trimming process were pretty well trimmed away, but the family last name looks like "Lennox" to me written in old script and that would make sense as Lennox is a Scottish name. The portrait is not dated, but the style of the photo mount and Mum in her fashionable large hat and ankle-covering skirt suggests the 1910s to us. Note father's bowler hat and gloves. The mount measures 8"x 7", with the actual photo image measuring approx. 6"x 4.25".

The 1920s

Aristocratic Family: Vicount Stonehaven (1920s)

Here we have a baby book kept by Lady Ethel Sydney Keith-Falconer (nee Baird) from 1920-28. It is a sturdy leather bound album. She was the eldest daughter of the 9th Earl of Kintore and in 1905 she married John Baird 1st Viscount Stonehaven who from 1925-28 served as Australia's Governor-General. They had 5 children, Annette who married in 1925, Ian, born in 1908 became the 12th Earl of Kintore, Greville born in 1910 was a squadren leader and died during the war; and two little girls, Ariel, born in 1916, and Ava 1919. This album covers their lives from 1920 to 1928. It is crammed with photos, postcards, newspaper clippings, poems by the children, hair from the children - even a letter to Santa! Everything you would expect a dotting mother to keep. Since the eldest daughter, Annette, got married half-way through the middle part of the album has many of her wedding photos and in an envelope on the final page there are more loose photos of the wedding. There are many full page photos of Ian & Greville at St Peter's Court prep school and Eton. There are also several of the children larking about at the Governor-General's mansion in Australia. Curiously, there are many examples of where people have been expertly cut out of one photo and then superimposed onto another - like people do today with photoshop! All in all it's a fascinating insight into Aristocratic life between the wars.

The 1930s

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Created: 5:32 PM 3/3/2019
Last updated: 5:32 PM 3/3/2019