Clan Davidson

History

The Davidsons are a Highland clan who, for most of their history, belonged to the Clan Chattan confederation. Their Gaelic name is Clann Dhaibhidh, or Clann Dhai. The clan societies derive the name from David Dubh, said to descend from an early Clan Chattan chief. Which line he came from is uncertain, and the early generations rest on tradition rather than on documents.

The clan's traditional home is Badenoch. The chiefs are said to have lived at Invernahavon, a small estate where the River Truim joins the Spey. A clash there between Clan Chattan and the Camerons is the best-known early story about the clan. Accounts place it around 1370, though some prefer the 1380s, and the date is not settled. The Davidsons are also thought, though not proved, to have fought alongside Clan Chattan in the combat on the North Inch at Perth in 1396.

Relations inside the confederation were not always easy. The Scottish Register of Tartans says the Davidsons were regularly at odds with their neighbours over which clan held precedence within Clan Chattan.

In the fifteenth century the Davidson chief and some of his followers are said to have moved to Davidston, in the parish of Cromarty on the Black Isle. The estate was sold in the eighteenth century. In 1763 a Davidson family from Cromarty acquired the estate of Tulloch, near Dingwall in Ross-shire, according to the Clan Chattan Association, and Tulloch has been linked with the family since. The Tulloch Davidsons later put themselves forward as heads of the whole clan.

The clan society says the chiefship has a modern history of its own. It records that arms were granted to Duncan Davidson, sixth of Tulloch, in 1906, and that the name Davidston first appears in that grant. It also says that at a meeting in London in 1909 about sixty clan members agreed that Davidson of Tulloch should be acknowledged as chief. Once the last chief had died, the clan went the best part of eighty years without one, until the Lord Lyon recognised Duncan Hector Davidson as chief in the mid-1990s. Sources give 1996 and January 1997, so we do not give an exact date. Clan Davidson NZ says his son succeeded him in 2015.

The present chief is Grant Guthrie Davidson, 3rd of Davidston, Chief of the Name and Arms of Davidson, as shown by the Standing Council of Scottish Chiefs, the Clan Davidson Society of North America and Clan Davidson New Zealand. He succeeded his father in 2015 and lives in New Zealand. Tulloch Castle at Dingwall remains the best-known place linked with the family.