Abercrombie Tartan

Clan Abercrombie

Abercrombie is a territorial name from the lands and parish of Abercrombie in Fife, by St Monans — an aber place name, the mouth of the burn. No origin legend attaches to it, which is a relief. The citation usually given is 1296, when William de Abercromby rendered homage to Edward I as recorded on the Ragman Rolls, but the academic place-name record runs earlier: ecclesia de Abercrumbin in 1247, abircrumbyn about 1250 in the St Andrews Liber, and Johanne Coco de Abircrumby and Ricardo Coco de Abercrumby both in 1260 — men designated from the lands thirty-six years before the date the trade usually prints. The parish was later joined to St Monans, an arrangement the Scottish Parliament confirmed in 1649.

The senior line sat at Birkenbog in Banffshire, where Sir Alexander Abercromby was created a baronet of Nova Scotia on 20 February 1636. A second branch held Tullibody in Clackmannanshire, building Tullibody House about 1700 and acquiring Menstrie Castle in 1719; it produced General Sir Ralph Abercromby, born at Menstrie on 7 October 1734, who did much to reform the British army during the French Revolutionary Wars. Wounded in the thigh at the Battle of Alexandria on 21 March 1801, he stayed on the field and in command to the end of the action; the ball could not be removed, mortification set in, and he died seven days later on 28 March, aged sixty-six. His widow was created Baroness Abercromby of Tullibody and Aboukir Bay. The Birkenbog baronetcy became extinct in 2003 on the death of the tenth baronet, and Abercrombie is an armigerous family with no chief recognised by the Lord Lyon.

The Abercrombie tartan

Two genuinely distinct Abercrombie setts are recorded. The first, and the one normally sold, is a nine-stripe pattern in green, white, black and dark blue with no red in it, carrying a design date of 1805 and attributed to William Wilson & Son of Bannockburn; an 1831 rendering of the same structure is also recorded. The second is registered as Abercrombie (Wilsons No 2/64), a seven-stripe pattern in black, green, yellow and purple — a different design rather than a colourway, and again a Wilsons pattern, named for its number in their books. A version of the second substituting white for the yellow guard line is a colourway of it. No designer is recorded for either sett.

The provenance here is better than most Lowland family tartans can claim, and it is worth spelling out why. Because the Abercrombie pattern is on record from 1805, it predates the Vestiarium Scoticum by nearly forty years and owes it nothing — Abercrombie does not appear among that book’s seventy-five tartans. The Vestiarium, published in 1842 under the name John Sobieski Stuart, claimed to reproduce a manuscript of 1721. The manuscript was never produced for examination, Sir Walter Scott doubted it as early as 1829, calling its Latin title false Latin, and a chemical test in 1895 found the writing had been treated to make it look older than it was. A great many clan tartans descend from that forgery. Abercrombie’s does not.

A note on honesty: Ancient, Modern, Weathered and Muted Abercrombie are colourways of the first sett, woven from the same threadcount in different colours, and are not separate tartans. And although the pattern has a well-documented commercial origin, a commercial origin is still what it is — nobody wore an Abercrombie tartan in the middle ages. No plant badge is recorded for the family, and with the chiefly baronetcy extinct there is no living grant of arms behind an Abercrombie clan crest badge.

Clan facts

References

1. Abercrombie tartans — The Scottish Register of Tartans
2. Abercrombie — Fife Place-name Data, University of Glasgow
3. Clan Abercromby — records, chiefship and motto
4. Ralph Abercromby — Menstrie 1734 to Alexandria 1801