Clan Taylor
Two quite separate things are sold as Taylor, and they are not related to one another. The first is Clan Tailyour, a Lowland family whose name is simply the trade: Walter Cissor — the Latin for a cutter or tailor — had a grant of land from David I around 1137, Alexander le Taillur was a valet to Alexander III in 1276, and six men of the name appear on the Ragman Rolls of 1296, from Angus to Roxburgh. Some accounts give the earliest reference instead as John de Tailleur at the Scottish court in 1170, so the first attestation sits somewhere in that range. From the eighteenth century this family held Kirktonhill, a few miles north of Montrose, bought with a fortune made from Jamaican sugar; the mansion was demolished in the 1960s and only a folly tower survives.
The second is the Highland Taylors, a sept of Clan Cameron descended from Donald Cameron, known as An Taillear Dubh, Black Taylor, in mid-sixteenth-century Lochaber. Tradition holds he was so called because he was nursed by a tailor’s wife, and that he later earned the name Taillear Dubh na Tuaighe, Black Taylor of the Axe, for his handling of the Lochaber axe. His descendants were Mac-an-taillear, son of the tailor. Men called Macintaylor are recorded sheltering outlawed MacGregors in 1613, and MacInTaillear families lived on Cowal in the eighteenth century. Neither strand has a chief.
The Taylor tartan
The Scottish Register of Tartans holds three Taylor setts, and they are distinct threadcounts rather than colourways of each other: Taylor (reference 4080), Taylor Dress #2 (4081) and Taylor Dress (4082, which the register files under Fashion rather than Clan or Family). The register is candid about its own uncertainty here, recording the designer of 4080 as “Taylor/MacDougal” and of 4082 as “Taylor or MacPherson ??” — the question marks are the register’s, not ours.
The main sett, 4080, was designed in 1955 by Lieutenant-Colonel Iain B. Cameron Taylor to honour the Taillear Dubh, and was recognised by Cameron of Lochiel. It is built on a Cameron pattern, and the Cameron pattern it draws on is one published in the Vestiarium Scoticum — the 1842 book of the Sobieski Stuarts, long since shown to be a forgery — though the Taylor sett is not itself a Vestiarium tartan. The two dress setts are also twentieth-century work; one is dated to 1983 in the tartan literature, but because the register’s detail pages will not load we cannot say which of 4081 and 4082 that date belongs to, so we do not pair them.
A note on honesty: Taylor Ancient, Taylor Modern, Taylor Muted and Taylor Weathered are colourways of reference 4080, not separate tartans, and there is no registered Taylor Hunting sett at all. Where a retailer advertises sixteen Taylor family tartans against three registered setts, the rest are colourways and cloth weights. No Taylor sett predates the commercial era — the earliest is 1955 — so there is no such thing as an ancient Taylor tartan, whatever the shade is called.
Clan facts
| Chief | None. Clan Tailyour is an armigerous clan with no chief, and the Highland Taylors are a sept of Clan Cameron rather than a clan of their own. Neither name appears in Debrett’s directory of clan chieftains, and we have found no Lyon recognition or date for either. |
|---|---|
| Motto | In cruce salus — “Salvation from the cross”. Two mottoes circulate for the name: some references instead give “He obtains whatever he seeks”, and others give none. We would not present either as settled. |
| Plant badge | Not recorded for Taylor. The Highland Taylors, as a Cameron sept, would use the Cameron badge — which belongs to Cameron, not to Taylor. |
| Lands | Kirktonhill, near Montrose, held by the Tailyours from the eighteenth century; Lochaber and Cowal for the Cameron-descended Taylors. No current seat. |