Figure 1.--Here we see a 'boot drive' for children shoes. Boot is being used in the sence of stout shoes. We are guessing the photograph was taken in Scotland, but the term bairn (child) was also used in northern England. The photograph was taken in 1911. Notice the man and boy in uniform. This looks to a drive organized by the Salvation Army. This also shows how delivvy vehicles were horse drawn, the situatin throughout Europe. America had already begun the transition to trucks.

Scottish footwear as best we can tell basically the same as English footwear. The only major difference we can see is economic and climate. While the actual footwear was similar, but with sandals less popular in Scotland. We see far more Scottish childtren going barefoot. Scotland was not as affluent as England as thus we see more barefoot children in Scotland during the 19th and early-20th century. Scotland is divided into the Highlands and Lowlands. The Lowlands is nuch mire influenced by Engkland and the most prosprrous area. We believe thatbgoing barefoot yhere was similar to nortyhern England. Goingbarefoot un the Higlands was more common, largely because the area was less prosperous. This was especially common in the 19th century, although we so not have a lot of images to substantiate this. Photography was only invented (1839) and we have fe examoles from the mid-19 century. We do note an illustration by Robert Ronald McIan (1803-56), dated mid-19th century. McIan depicted a Scottish teenager from Clan Grant coming back from hunting. McIan is best known for depictions of Scottish clansmen, their battles and domestic life. They have been descrived as romamtizied. They depict what we now call folk wear. We are not sure how prevalent kilts and other folkwear were. But we notice another artist depicting kilts and bare feet at about the same time--Michael Frederick Halliday (1822-69). And example at the tyurn of thev20th century is the McLaren boys (1903). We suspect that trends in the 19th century were similar to the situatioons in the Western Isles. And we do have imahes from the Hebirdies dating from the early-20th century. The children there commonly went barefoot into the 1950s. Going barefoot in the Hihlands seems to have begin to decline after the turn of the 20th century, especially after World War I (1914-18), althogh we have few images to confirm this trend. And this was a problenm because Scotland is the most northerly part of Britain. The weather here i scooler than in England. Thus it is more important for the children to have shoes, especially durng the fall and winter. We notice both street children and children at school who are barefoot. A good example is the Queen Mary Street Public School in Glasgow during 1916. Glasgow of course was in the Lowlands. And we think it was more common to go barefoot in the Highlands. Poverty was another factor in going barefoot and there were some very poor sections of Glasgow which is pergaps why so many of the children are barefoot in the school portrait. A French reader writes, "Quite strange to see barefoot children. That could shock people here in France. I think it is a cultural question. Even in the poor villages in France, the children in this case were wearing clogs." HBC is unsure how common clogs were in Scotland. We do not see them in the photographic record, but our Scottish archive is still limited.

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Created: 10:00 PM 7/8/2018
Last updated: 6:43 PM 2/3/2023