Early Wilson History

The Wilsons were a long-established Scottish family of which my mother, Helen Lilian Wilson, was intensely proud. The Bannockburn Wilsons were of the Gunn Clan, and she often wore a Gunn brooch - sadly, one of the many things that disappeared in her last years.

The Gunns have a Norse origin, descended from pirates who settled in the far north of Scotland around Caithness. In the 15th Century they were involved in a bloody feud with the Keiths. The daughter of Lachlan Gunn was carried off by a Keith to Ackergill where she threw herself from the top of a tower. Following a desperate but indecisive battle at Thurso the Gunns were defeated on the Muir of Tannach in 1438.

In 1464 the two sides agreed to settle their dispute amicably but the Keiths treacherously attacked the Gunns and cut them to pieces, after which most of the Gunns migrated to Sutherland.

At some point 'our' Wilsons migrated south to settle in Bannockburn, Stirlingshire. The earliest record of a Wilson in our family is of John Wilson, described as 'Burgess and neighbour in Stirling'. His son, also John Wilson, married Jean Christie in December 1727, their first son, William, having been born the previous July, according to the Old Parochial registers of St Ninians and Stirling, ‘in fornication’.

The Wilsons of Bannockburn became weavers and tartan manufacturers. William Wilson, the son of John Wilson and Jean Christie, 1727-97, was the founder of the Wilson manufacturing dynasty. His business, William Wilson and Son, was fully established in the village of Bannockburn by about 1759 and was not to be wound up until 1926.

There has been much dispute about the origin of the clan tartans but it is obvious that the tartan existed for many years before 1745, the colours not being connected to clans but varying according to the vegetable dyes available in the different districts. For example, one of the earliest tartans, one collected by the Wilsons during their researches, was the Lochaber tartan, above.

Following the ending of the Jacobite uprising at the Battle of Culloden in 1746 the tartan was outlawed. The suppression of the tartan lasted for thirty-six years with the result that many of the traditional patterns and manufacturing methods were lost. It was the literary resurgence in Scotland, led by men like Sir Walter Scott, which encouraged their return. King George IV and Queen Victoria were proud to wear the tartan.

William Wilson and Son were in the forefront of the development of the new tartans. The early ‘district’ tartans - examples of which include Lochaber, Crieff, Old Huntley, Glenorchy, Old and New Gallowater, Locheil and Perth - were based on the Wilsons’ historical research. This included travelling around the country collecting specimens of tartan but these were quickly overtaken by a wealth of new, invented patterns most of which were attached to Clan names. The seminal Wilson’s ‘Key Pattern’ books of 1819 and 1840 showed how the numbers of patterns increased. The company went on to design and make tartans for the Highland Regiments, for example the Black Watch (above), that were raised to fight the wars in Europe and the Empire.