Show us your Vintage Kilt Photos

[BoldHighlander]

caption:
"A photograph of John Brown with four of Queen Victoria's dogs, a Daschund, a terrier, and two collies. At first glance, it may be hard to see these two dogs as collies. The ears are the old fashioned tag ears that we don't see much today, and the very small amount of white on them, none on the face and no collar, would also be quite unusual for today. We think the dog seated at Brown's feet may be Noble."



caption:
"A photo of William Brown, a personal servant to Queen Victoria at Balmoral and a brother of John Brown, with three of the Queen's dogs, Marco, Turi, and the collie, Roy, a successor to Sharp and Noble."

[BoldHighlander]

[BoldHighlander]

caption:
"Henry of Prussia, Patsy, Irene of Prussia (Hesse), Daisy & May
The date was actually 1900 and they were wearing mourning for Affie."

[BoldHighlander]

Though not in a kilt, this one is too good to pass up!

I receive an e-newsletter on Celtic History sent out by The Celtic Croft & MacGregor Historic Games. This weeks edition is about Colonel Alexander Gardner (1785 - 1877).



from the Celtic History newsletter:

Colonel Alexander Gardner

I admit I may be stretching the "Celtic" connection for this month,
but it is about the son of a Scottish immigrant, and he is such an
interesting character I couldn't resist? Another American-born
adventurer, Josiah Harlan is believed to have been the inspiration for Kipling's story (and
the Sean Connory/Michael Caine movie) "The Man who would be King," but
I can't help but suspect Alexander Gardner was also an inspiration. I
first into ran a fictionalized description of Alexander Gardner in the
novel "Flashman and the Mountain of Light" by George MacDonald Fraser.
Here was the description that Fraser's main character provided of him:

"I noticed a an extraordinary figure lounging in an embrasure above
the gate, swigging from an enormous tankard and barking orders at a
party of Guardsmen drilling with the light guns on the wall. He was a
real Pathan mercenary, with iron moustaches and a nose like a hatchet
- but he was dressed from top to toe, puggaree (turban), robe an
pyjamys, in the red tartan of the 79th Highlanders! Well I've seen a
Madagascar n---er in a Black Watch kilt, but this beat all. Stranger
still he carried a greet metal collar in one hand, and each time
before he drank he would clamp it around his throat, almost as though
he expected the liquor to leak out through is Adam's apple."

The only known photo of him, taken in his 80's and eventually
published in his memoir, shows Gardner to be just as imposing as his
fictional alter-ego. -Still wearing tartan from hear to toe -including
a turban with a feather plume (see the photo above). The
description of the metal collar is due to one of the 14 wounds it is
claimed that he sustained over his colorful career. It is said that
due to a neck wound he could no longer swallow properly and that
collar provided assistance, or support when eating and drinking.

Gardner was born in 1785 in the state of Wisconsin to a Scottish
father and an Anglo-Spanish mother. About 1809 he traveled to Ireland.
When he returned to America in 1812, he found that his father had died
and so left for Russia where his brother was working, and never came
back to the U.S. After the death of his brother he tried to secure a
post in the Russian Army, but was turned down and so spent the next 13
years wandering through Central Asia. One writer describes his life
during that time as "that of an adventurous freebooter, ready to fight
for anybody." In Afghanistan, 1823 Habib Ullah Khan, the nephew of
Dost Mohammed Khan was fighting his uncle for the throne of Kabul, and
Habib recruited Gardner to his cause as the commander of 180 horsemen.
Gardner married a woman captured in an attack on a pilgrim caravan,
and Habib granted him a small hilltop fort as his home. Unfortunately
when Habib was finally defeated in 1826 Gardner's wife and child were
murdered by the forces of Dost Mohammed Khan.

For several years after the death of his family his story becomes
rather unclear and fragmented including what some authors have called
some improbable episodes. Eventually becomes a Commandant of
Artillery, and in 1830 he swore allegiance to the Maharajah Ranjit
Singh, the "Lion of the Punjab." There, he was one of between 30 and
100 Western soldiers serving in Ranjit's army and was eventually
granted the rank of colonel. The Maharajah had some interesting
expectations of his western mercenaries and Gardner tells of one point
where Ranjit Singh insists that they build him steamboat. It ends up
sounding like a scene from Fraser's tongue-in-cheek novel mentioned
above. They were given 40,000 Rupees to begin the project, 15,000 of
which are promptly side-tracked by corrupt officials at court. Not
having access to "modern" engineering and metal working they did not
have the ability build a steam engine, but that didn't stop the
project...

"I read up all I could about paddle-boat building and succeeded in
turning out a wondrous sort of two-decked barge, with paddle wheels to
be worked by hand? Ranjit Singh clapped his hands, as was his wont, in
ecstasy with the boat, in the sides of which I had made port holes
which bristled with swivel guns. This boat was launched on the Ravi
(river), but with the utmost efforts of the exhausted wheelturners
would not go more than ten yards or so up the stream. However Ranjit
Singh was delighted. I had built fore and aft cabins, and he filled
them with nautch girls (dancing girls)."

Unfortunately Gardner's story is not all gallant adventure and humor.
His biographer seems to have ignored some of the brutal episodes that
others remembered, including Gardner cutting off the noses of certain
offenders as ordered by the Maharajah. Thus he may not be as noble a
character as some would like to read about, but his life certainly is
one of those that is as strange and interesting as any fiction tale.
Unlike many similar adventurers, his end was not a violent one, but
rather he eventually retired to Cashmere died peacefully in 1877.

His memoirs are in the public domain and can be downloaded for free in
several different electronic formats through the Internet Archive.

[BoldHighlander]

Jack & John Russell (brothers?) Gordon Highlanders WW1.

[BoldHighlander]

[BoldHighlander]