The Wallace family

The Wallaces are a Lowland family of Ayrshire and Renfrewshire rather than a Highland clan. The name derives from words meaning “the Welshman” or foreigner, most likely applied to Britons of the old kingdom of Strathclyde.

Richard Wallace is recorded following Walter FitzAlan, the first High Steward, into Kyle in Ayrshire around 1160, and the family took root at Riccarton, Elderslie, Craigie and Auchenbathie. Their fame rests on Sir William Wallace, victor at Stirling Bridge in 1297, Guardian of Scotland, and executed at Smithfield in London in 1305. The present chief is Andrew Robert Wallace, 36th Chief of the Name and Arms of Wallace, who succeeded his father in 2016.

The Wallace tartan

The tartan is far younger than the family. The Scottish Register of Tartans records Wallace with the designer given as unknown, and Wallace Dress attributed to the Sobieski Stuarts, that is to the Vestiarium Scoticum of 1842. The Clan Wallace Society dates the familiar red, black and yellow sett to 1842 and links its emergence to Wilsons of Bannockburn beginning to attach setts to family names in the 1820s. The society dates the green Hunting Wallace to 1980 and the blue to before 1985. Dundee Wallace is a district tartan and is not recognised by the chief.

A note on honesty: Sir William Wallace did not wear a “Wallace tartan”. Named family tartans are a development of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, five hundred years after his death. The red sett is worn today as a tribute to him, not as a relic of him.

Family facts

References

1. Wallace tartans — The Scottish Register of Tartans
2. Clan Wallace Tartans — Clan Wallace Society
3. Clan Wallace — Clan Wallace Society
4. The History of Tartan — The Scottish Tartans Authority