Highlanders

Independent companies of Scottish Highlanders were the first British regular units to be employed as light infantry in petite guerre operations. 

Sculpting my Highlanders has been a bit of a challenge for a number of reasons. 

The first obvious problem consisted in sorting out the intricacies of the belted plaid… 

After a few, unsuccessful attempts at sculpting the plaid directly from re-enactor pictures and illustrations found in uniform books, I decided that I needed to work from a three-dimensional model. For that purpose, I called back into service an old wooden artist’s mannequin. I cut a piece of cloth of a suitable size, and traced on it a simple grid to represent the basic lines of the tartan pattern. I then wrapped the piece of cloth on the mannequin, secured it at the waist with a rubber band, and tried to arrange it so as to reproduce the general effect shown in the illustrations and pictures found in the books and on the Internet.

Most early to mid 18th-Century pieces of pictorial evidence show the skirts of the plaid open at the wearer’s front. Almost no period representations go into such detail as to show how the skirts actually overlap, but the very few that do so definitely show them overlapping right-over-left, which arrangement I choose to follow (despite the fact that later representations, such as McIan’s well-known engravings from the 1840s, show just the opposite, and most modern illustrations follow this later pattern).

The next issue I faced was determining how the waistcoat and jacket were worn in relationship to  the belted plaid. Some early sources show no jacket, with the waistcoat tucked into the plaid. Others again show no jacket, but the waistcoat worn over the plaid. The Cloathing Book of 1742 has a soldier of the 43rd Highland Regiment, the Black Watch, wearing both jacket and waistcoat over the plaid. Interestingly, the  jacket is shorter than the waistcoat, an odd enough order of dress that I nevertheless choose to retain in my figures. The Cloathing Book also shows an unusual button arrangement for both waistcoat and jacket, but I opted for the simpler pattern shown in all other period images known to me.

I thus obtained two standing poses, the one holding his musket at ready,  the other firing. 

In order to be able to deploy my Highlanders three ranks deep, as was the norm in the British army of the mid 18th Century, I needed kneeling front rankers. To do this, I cut one of my standing figures at the waist, but kept the lower legs below the knees, which I added to kneeling legs from my basic anatomy mannequins.

When sculpting the kneeling Highlander's plaid, I took care that the arms of the standing figures fitted neatly also on the new kneeling master.

All my Highlander privates are equipped with waist cartridge box and canvas haversack. They are armed with basket-hilt broadsword, and Long Land Service musket with bayonet. 

In order not to further encumber the already rather bulky figures, I decided to omit dirk and all-metal pistol, which, albeit seemingly popular with all ranks of Highland units, apparently were non-regulation weapons and were not supplied by the Government. 

In contrast, I wanted both officer and sergeant to sport Scottish dirk and pistol, as shown in most period paintings and engravings. I sculpted separate masters for these items, as well as for an unsheathed broadsword.

I then sculpted another preliminary Highlander mannequin and produced two resin castings  that I used as a base for both the officer's and sergeant's masters.

The officer's rank his shown by the sash worn left-to-right across his chest, while his higher social standing is revealed by his elaborated coiffure (his own curled, powdered hair, or perhaps a wig). 

In contrast, the sergeant’s hairstyle and overall look are more in line with those of the rank-and-file. In order to make him more readily distinguishable from his men, I gave him a halberd, although in small-scale actions this cumbersome, obsolete weapon was probably discarded and replaced with the more useful musket…

All in all, my figures should represent typical enough Government Highlanders of the 1740s and 1750s:  soldiers of the 43rd  (later 42nd) or the 64th regiment, or perhaps of one of the many independent companies performing police duty in the Highlands of Scotland, or serving overseas. 

By removing the King’s cipher from the waist cartridge box, and painting the jackets and waistcoats some casual combination of colors rather than red, these figures may also take the field as Jacobite clansmen of the ’45, armed with captured Government muskets… 

The sergeant in the foreground and the corporals, identifiable by the white cord loop worn on the right shoulder,  are simple conversions of my stock figures.

References: 

The Cloathing Book of 1742, Facsimile reproduction, The Naval and Military Press.

Darling, A., Weapons of the Highland regiments, Museum Restoration Service, 1998.

Scott, J.G., Scottish arms – Illustrated by pieces from the collection in Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum. Armi Antiche – Bollettino dell’Accademia di S. Marciano – Torino, 1963.