Balmoral bonnet

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
toorie, and a clan crest badge
on the cockade

The Balmoral bonnet (in

Tam o' Shanter cap and the (formal or informal) Glengarry
bonnet.

Design

Originally with a voluminous crown, today, the bonnet is smaller, made of finer

toorie, traditionally red. Some versions have a diced band (usually red and white check) around the lower edge's circumference.[citation needed
]

History

blue bonnets (hard to distinguish by this period) and tartan belted plaids
(great kilts).

As worn by Scottish Highland regiments, the

blue bonnet (common civilian headwear) gradually developed into two military forms. One was the Balmoral/Kilmarnock bonnet, illustrated clearly, complete with ribbon cockade and small toorie (pompon), around 1744. The other was a taller, stiffened felt cylinder, often decorated with an ostrich-plume hackle sweeping over the crown from left to right (as well as flashes of bearskin or painted turkey hackles). The dividing line between the blue bonnet and the Balmoral/Kilmarnock is unclear. A mid-18th-century portrait of Lord George Murray
shows a black cap essentially indistinguishable from a Balmoral, but sometimes described as a "blue bonnet".

In the 19th century, the taller version of the military cap evolved into the extravagant full dress feather bonnet. Meanwhile, the plainer, flatter form continued in use, as an undress cap, until the mid-19th century. By then known as the Kilmarnock bonnet, it was officially replaced by the Glengarry bonnet, which had been in use unofficially since the late eighteenth century and was essentially a folding side cap version of the cylindrical military cap. The name "Balmoral", as applied to the traditional headdress, appears to date from the late 19th century. Balmorals were described in 1842 as having become common civilian headwear "worn pretty generally by ploughmen, carters and boys of the humbler ranks".[1]

In 1903, a blue bonnet in traditional style but with a stiffened crown was adopted briefly by some Lowland regiments as full-dress headgear. After the Second World War, while all other Scottish regiments chose the Glengarry, a soft blue Balmoral was adopted as full dress headgear by the Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) and was worn with the green no. 1 dress jacket and with khaki no. 2 or service dress. As part of the amalgamation of the Scottish regiments in 2006, the military Balmoral was done away with; all battalions of the Royal Regiment of Scotland now wear the Glengarry. The Balmoral is still widely used as a part of a uniform in the Army Cadet Force, including its pipe band.

Use of the Balmoral has been championed by songwriter Richard Thompson, who uses it on stage, in addition to its traditional place in Highland dress.

North American usage

All Canadian highland regiments, e.g. the 48th Highlanders of Canada, the

Confederate soldiers in the American Civil War.[3]

Other usage

The

Hong Kong Police
Band bagpipes section wears a black and red version.

References

  1. ^ "British Costumes". Chambers' Information for the People (87): 392. 1842.
  2. ^ "Dress Regs QOCHofC". Archived from the original on 13 July 2013. Retrieved 23 June 2013.[failed verification]
  3. Charleston Light Dragoons
    wearing a Balmoral.
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