Figure 1.--We do not know just where in Scotland thisphotograph was taken or the date. It looks like a small village, perhaps in the 1940s.or the early-50s. The children sem to be primary age. We think they are with their mother rather than an older sibling.

The kilt by the early 20th century had come to be dress wear. I think some Scottish boys at private schools may have worn kilts to school. The convention was, however, probably to wear the kilt to Church on Sunday or for other special occasions. I would not dismiss the possibility of some schools adopting the kilt as the school uniform. It is likely, however, that the kilt was not commonly worn at state schools. Kilts were still seen at schools, but were normally only worn at a small minority of the boys. Many state and fee paying day schools had kilts as an option and many took them up. One HBC contributor reports that about 20 percent of boys at some primary schools in the 1950s might be kilted. In his case, the village school in the early 1950s had three boys, including him, who were regularly kilted out of a school population of about 60 children. About 30 of whom would be boys so about 10 percent in this case. Another 6 boys wore kilts some of the time, say for Sunday wear or special occassions. Thismay have varied by region. Kilts were probably more common in the Highlands. We note the Pitcalnie School in the northern Highlands during 1957. Aboout half of the boys wear kilts. We also see boys at private schools wearing kilts, such as Scotus Academy in the 1960s. At secondary school there were only about 10 kilties out of a school population of about 400, of whom 200 would be boys so only 5 percent and reducing in the senior forms. At university there were also some kilties but harder to quantify. Some areas of Scotland had higher percentages and some lower. If there were a critical mass of kilted boys other boys were less resistant to the idea of kilt wearing and mothers even more keen tosend their sons out this way. Financial means also played a part since kilts by te 1950s were expensive.

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Created: 9:00 AM 2/27/2015
Last updated: 8:06 PM 5/24/2021