Clan Matheson

Clan Matheson — in Gaelic Clann Mhathain, from MacMhathghamhuin, “son of the bear”, a derivation echoed in the bear supporters of the chief’s arms — was a Wester Ross clan seated in Lochalsh, Lochcarron and Kintail, holding its lands from the Earls of Ross. The usual documentary anchor is 1262 to 1263, when a leader recorded as Cormac Macmaghan took part in Alexander III’s expedition to Skye, and Kenneth MacMathan appears as constable of Eilean Donan Castle at the time of King Haakon IV’s Norwegian campaign. The claimed descent from Kenneth MacAlpin is tradition, not record.

In 1411 the clan fought for Donald, Lord of the Isles, at Harlaw under its chief Alastair. In 1427 the chief was among the Highland magnates seized by James I at Inverness and executed, leaving two sons from whom the Lochalsh and Sutherland branches descend. Iain Dubh Matheson, constable of Eilean Donan for the Mackenzies, was killed defending the castle in 1539. Squeezed thereafter between the MacLeods of Lewis, the MacDonalds of Glengarry and the rising Mackenzies, the clan declined as an independent power. Its greatest nineteenth-century figure was Sir James Matheson, co-founder of Jardine, Matheson & Co. in the China trade, who bought the Isle of Lewis in 1844 for £190,000 and built Lews Castle at Stornoway. His famine relief works and his assisted emigration of 1,771 people between 1851 and 1855 are both part of that record, and the latter is now widely read as clearance.

The Matheson tartan

A practical point first: there is no sett registered simply as “Matheson”. The red tartan sold under that name corresponds to the Register entry Matheson – 1831. Alongside it the Register holds a Matheson Dress sett dated 1850 and a family of green Hunting setts, one of which is recorded as “Matheson Hunting (Highland Society of London)” with a date of 1810 — pointing to the Highland Society’s clan-tartan collection as its source. Entries marked Lochcarron and WCWM are categorised as fashion variants, that is, weavers’ versions rather than clan setts.

A note on honesty: Matheson Modern, Ancient and Weathered are colourways of these same setts, not separate tartans. No Matheson sett has documented pre-1745 existence, and none derives from the Vestiarium Scoticum — so the common shortcut of blaming that book for every clan tartan does not apply here.

Clan facts

References

1. Matheson tartans — The Scottish Register of Tartans
2. Clan Matheson — Electric Scotland
3. Matheson baronetcies and chiefship — Clan Matheson New Zealand
4. Sir James Matheson, Baronet — Hebridean Connections