Wilson ModernThe Wilson name
Wilson is a patronymic surname — son of Will, or William — and not a Highland clan. It is recorded in Scotland as Wulson by 1405 and is today the third most common surname in the country. That commonness is the whole story: the name arose independently in many places, which is why there is no single Wilson line, no Wilson lands and no Wilson seat.
Wilson does not appear among the families whose chiefs are recognised by the Lord Lyon King of Arms, and it is not listed as an armigerous clan either — the term for a family that once had a chief bearing undifferenced arms and no longer does. Crest badges, mottoes and sept lists sold for a “Clan Wilson” have no basis we have been able to source, and we would rather say so than repeat them.
The Wilson tartan
Two separate things sit under this spelling in the Scottish Register of Tartans, and they are constantly confused. The first is the surname: a sett recorded as Wilson and dated 1780, and a second, larger blue, green, red and white sett recorded as Wilson (Janet), also dated 1780 and classed by the register as the Clan/Family entry. Those are the two genuinely distinct Wilson family threadcounts. The duplicate entries marked “#2” are second transcriptions of the same two designs, not further tartans.
The second thing is the weaving firm. Some 160 register entries begin “Wilsons’” — Wilsons’ No. 001 through No. 234, Wilsons’ Blanket Pattern, and so on — and these belong to William Wilson & Sons of Bannockburn, the commercial weavers who supplied much of Scotland from about 1765. Their 1819 key pattern book holds roughly 250 patterns, about a hundred of them named, and the Scottish Tartans Museum is blunt that those names “were not meant to be representative in any way — they were there as a sales tool.” They are not Wilson family tartans.
A note on honesty: Wilson Modern, Ancient, Weathered and Muted are colourways of one sett, not four tartans, and there is no registered Wilson Hunting or Wilson Dress. No Wilson sett predates the commercial era — the earliest date in the record is 1780, which is a weaver’s pattern, not a medieval one. The often-repeated story that the sett was made for the 1780 marriage of William Wilson the younger to Janet Paterson is tradition: the date is in the register, the wedding is not, and we could not confirm it in any scholarly source.
Family facts
| Chief | Not recorded. No chief of Wilson is recognised by the Lord Lyon, and Wilson is not listed as a clan or as an armigerous clan |
|---|---|
| Motto | Not recorded |
| Plant badge | Not recorded |
| Lands | Not recorded. Bannockburn, Stirlingshire belongs to the weaving firm, not to a family seat |
