Clan Carruthers
Carruthers is a Border name from Annandale in Dumfriesshire. The earliest record of it is a donation to Newbattle Abbey by William de Karruthers in the reign of Alexander II (1215–1249), and Simon de Karruthers, cleric of Middlebie, appears in record between about 1272 and 1307. In 1320 Thomas Carruthers, 1st of Mouswald, received a charter of lands including Mouswald from Robert the Bruce, and Mouswald became the baronial seat. A charter of Holmains followed in 1375 to Roger Carruthers, and in 1542 the Holmains lands were erected into a free barony.
The family sat on the West March, and in 1587 Carruthers was named on the roll of unruly clans. Arms were registered under the Lyon Act of 1672 and a Royal Charter to Holmains followed in 1755, but the estate was lost through financial failure in 1772. The chiefship fell dormant in 1809 on the death of John Carruthers, 12th of Holmains, and remained so for 210 years. The Lord Lyon restored it by interlocutor on 19 August 2019, after two hearings in the Lyon Court, and the chief was inaugurated on 24 August 2024.
The Carruthers tartan
The Scottish Register of Tartans returns two Carruthers entries, both designed by Brian Wilton and recorded on 25 January 2017: Carruthers (reference 11700), in the Clan/Family category, and Carruthers, George (reference 11699), a personal tartan. The clan tartan is the red sett, commissioned by Dr George Carruthers, clan armiger, and first woven by House of Edgar of Perth. The blue sett registered on the same day was retained as a private family tartan and is not the clan tartan.
A note on honesty: Carruthers has no ancient, weathered, hunting or dress tartan. Anything sold under those names is the 2017 red sett in different dye shades — a colourway, not a separate tartan. The clan society is unusually blunt about this, and it also disposes of the widely repeated claim that a Carruthers tartan predates 1746: the cloth in question matches the Bruce threadcount and is registered as Bruce, the confusion arising because Carruthers was classed as a sept of Bruce from the mid-1800s. Carruthers had no tartan of its own before 2017, and the name does not appear in the Vestiarium Scoticum.
Clan facts
| Chief | Dr Simon Peter Carruthers of Holmains, Chief of the Name and Arms of Carruthers |
|---|---|
| Gaelic patronymic | Not recorded — a Lowland Border family |
| Motto | Promptus et Fidelis — “Ready and Faithful” |
| Plant badge | Common gorse, chosen and registered by the present chief; a modern choice rather than an old tradition |
| Lands | Annandale, Dumfriesshire; seat at Holmains, earlier Mouswald Tower |