Clan Carnegie

Carnegie is a Lowland territorial name, not a Gaelic patronymic: the family is of Angus and takes its name from the lands of Carnegie in the parish of Carmyllie. In 1358 Walter de Maule granted the lands and barony of Carnegie to John de Balinhard, who dropped his own designation and took that of the property. Around 1401 Duthac de Carnegie acquired part of the lands of Kinnaird, confirmed by charter in 1409, and Kinnaird near Brechin has been the family’s Angus seat ever since. The clan’s district is Angus, and the arms carry an antique cup, referring to a claimed office of cup-bearer to the Scottish kings — a claim of the kind that is easy to repeat and hard to document.

Three dates carry most of the family’s history. Duthac de Carnegie was killed at the Battle of Harlaw in 1411. In 1452 Walter Carnegie fought at the Battle of Brechin, and the Earl of Crawford burned the village of Kinnaird in reprisal. In 1633 David Carnegie was advanced to Earl of Southesk. The reversal came with the Jacobites: James Carnegie, 5th Earl of Southesk (1692–1730), came out in the rising of 1715, was attainted by Act of Parliament, and the titles and estates were forfeited. The family held on as baronets of Pittarrow and as de jure earls for six generations until Sir James Carnegie, 6th Baronet, obtained a reversal of the attainder in 1855 and took his place as 9th Earl of Southesk. The line then married into the royal house: Charles Alexander Carnegie, 11th Earl (1893–1992), married Princess Maud in November 1923, she being a granddaughter of Edward VII through the 1st Duke of Fife and Louise, Princess Royal. Their son James held the Fife dukedom and added the Southesk earldom in 1992. The present chief succeeded in 2015, and because the Dukedom of Fife carries with it the Earldom of Macduff, the chief of Carnegie also holds a MacDuff title.

The Carnegie tartan

A search of the Scottish Register of Tartans for Carnegie returns nine records, and only four of them belong to the family. The clan and family entries are Carnegie, Carnegie #2, Carnegie #3 and Carnegie Dress, none of them registered with a designer or a date. Carnegie Check is a district tartan by the Woolly Mill.

The remaining four are corporate and belong to a different Carnegie altogether. Carnegie of Skibo was designed by Robert Mathieson; Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy were both registered by Prickly Thistle Scotland Ltd. on 14 June 2022; and The Carnegie Club at Skibo Castle was registered by Araminta Campbell on 4 February 2025. All four attach to Andrew Carnegie, the Dunfermline-born industrialist who bought Skibo Castle in 1898, and not to the Angus family at all.

A note on honesty: the Carnegie clan sett is not an old family pattern and does not originate with the family. It is a variant of the MacDonell of Glengarry tartan — the same arrangement with the white threads rendered yellow, a difference small enough that it may simply be drift in the weaving — attached to the name on the strength of a tradition that James Carnegie, 5th Earl of Southesk, wore it around the rising of 1715. No weaver is named, no date of first weaving is recorded, and the Register lists the sett without a source. Carnegie Ancient and Carnegie Modern are not two tartans but one threadcount in lighter or darker dye shades, and the Register holds no separate record for either. Nor is there a plant badge: the standard clan records for Carnegie give a crest and a motto and nothing more, and we would rather say so than invent a sprig.

Clan facts

References

1. Carnegie tartans — The Scottish Register of Tartans
2. Carnegie — COSCA, the Council of Scottish Clans and Associations
3. Clan Carnegie