Clan Moffat

Photo from the Up Helly Aa Fire Festival

For all the Moffat’s prim Presbyterian ways they came from Vikings via Border Reivers…

Clan history and genealogy are not the same thing - clan histories move forward in time while genealogy is about tracing family members back in time. But it was exciting when the Moffats finally got their recognition as a clan in 1983.

Wee History

c 1075 William de Mont Alto marries a daughter of a Norse warrior.

Over the years the name changes to Montealt to Mohaut to Movat to Moffat

1286 Nicholas de Moffat is Bishop of Glasgow

1300 Adam Moffat of Knock is granted land in Westerkirk by Robert the Bruce

1314 Adam and his brother fight in the Battle of Bannockburn

1337 Walter de Moffat, Archdeacon of Lothian is Ambassador to France.

1300 - 1600 The Moffats were Border Reivers, fighting other clans and stealing sheep and cattle from each other and from the English south of the border. The town of Moffat in Dumfriesshire is their base.

1557 Murky - maybe the Johnstone clan, the Moffat’s arch enemy, murdered clan chief Robert Moffat - then there is no official clan until 1983.

1633 - 1921 Moffat becomes a spa town when mineral springs are discovered. Its heyday as a resort ends when the Hydropathic Hotel burns down. But you can still stay at the Black Bull Inn (built in 1568) one of the oldest hostelries in Scotland.

1983 Francis Moffat “of that ilk” is recognized as the chief of the clan.

1992 Jean Moffat, Francis’ daughter, becomes chief.

from The Reivers Wedding by Walter Scott:

He took a bugle frae his side,

With names carved o'er and o'er.

Full many a chief of meikle pride,

That Border bugle bore.

The Devils Beef Tub in Moffat

(a hiding place for stolen livestock)

George McDonald Fraser’s 1972 book The Steel Bonnets tells the story of the Border Reivers.

Moffat tartan (designed in 1983)