The Gordon Highlanders

Regimental History

Drums & Pipes

Regimental
Association

Regimental Museum

CHAPTER I

EFORE entering on the history of a Highland regiment, it may not be out of place to consider the state of the Highlands at the period when it was raised.

The mountainous and thinly peopled part of Scotland known as the “Highlands” included the Western Isles from Lewis in the in the north to Bute and Arran in the south, and the mainland north and west of the “Highland line.” This was drawn from Bute, by the Firth of Clyde, to Leven in Dumbartonshire; by Ardoch and Drymen in Stirlingshire, to near Doune, Crieff, and Dunkeld in Perthshire; Airlie, Prosen, and Glenesk in Angus; Glenmuick and Edinglassie in Aberdeen, Ballindalloch and Craigellachie in Banff and, taking in part of Moray and nearly the whole of Nairn, included along with these parts of counties the whole of Argyll, Inverness, Ross and Cromarty, Sutherland and Caithness, with, perhaps, the exception of the district immediately around Wick.[1]  This was the line of demarcation between Highlands and Lowlands adopted by the Government in considering the treatment of the forfeited estates and their proprietors after the failure of the rising in 1745, and was chiefly determined, apparently, by the use of the Gaelic language and Highland dress.

Till 1745—”Bliadhna Thearlaich,”[2] as it is called in the Highlands—the chiefs and gentry exercised almost absolute power on their estates.  Their quarrels were frequently settled as “in the good old times of yore, when Buckler was defendant and plaintiff was Claymore”; and their people unhesitatingly backed them without the slightest inquiry into the merits of the case.  Political  opinions were expressed in blows rather than by votes, and the tenants seldom differed, or, at any rate, seldom expressed a different opinion from the laird.  Such instances did occasionally occur, but practically there was no law but the lairds above the “Highland line.”

The population was kept down by fighting, by smallpox and other diseases—more fatal when doctors were few and dwellings insanitary; by periodical famines and generally hard conditions of life, which prevented any but the strongest children from coming to maturity.

After the “Forty-five,” the hereditary jurisdiction was taken from the chiefs, the estates of those who had followed Prince Charlie being forfeited to the Crown.  The Highland dress was abolished by Act of Parliament[3], on purpose to break the clan spirit, the only [2] exception made by the Act being in favour of” Officers and soldiers in His Majesty’s army,” Highland regiments being always allowed to wear it, as they have done ever since.

For a civilian who persisted in wearing the kilt the punishment was six months’ imprisonment for the first offence, and for the second, transportation to the American plantations, which was a life of slavery.  It is hardly credible in the present day that the Government should care what c1othes a man wore; but in 1747 troops were detached in many parts of the north, who patrolled certain districts, and made prisoner every man they met wearing the forbidden garb.  In the “Life of General Wolfe,” the hero of Quebec, and elsewhere, there are some curious reports by the officers of , detachments. For instance, an officer at Fort-William writes (I quote from memory), “Sir, I have the honour to report that the patrol under my command this day took a man wearing the philabeg. He pled that it was not made of clan colours, but of plain stuff. As. this was a moot point, we took it from off him, the sergeant cut it in pieces with his sword, and we let him go free.” So the poor gentleman had to walk home in his shirt!  Another reports from Morven (Argyllshire) that the people of the district have given up the philabeg, but have not adopted the breeches as ordered, but a sort of loose dress sewn in the middle, and leaving the knees bare.  The officer asks if this dress is objectionable, or if it might be allowed.

lt would probably give nearly as much trouble to make the people of Morven return to the kilt to-day as it took to make their grandfathers leave it off!

This edict was not enforced very strictly for more than ten year though it remained in force for thirty-five years; and one officers complains of the Sheriffs of Perthshire for not convicting; and another at Braemar, mentioning a man who had been taken wearing the Highland dress, reports that “one Shaw, a half Laird,” and servant Allan Coutts, had encouraged the mob in Irish to rescue him, adding, “We want magistrates that will and dare exert themselves.” Captain Beckwith, stationed at the head of Loch Arkaig, reports—”On the 24^th of last month one of my men brought me a man to all appearance in a philabeg, but on close examination I found it to be a woman’s petticoat (which answers every end of that part of the Highland dress).  I sent him to the Sheriff-Substitute, who dismissed him.”  Thus it seems probable that in some comparatively little notice was taken of it.[4]  Still, there was always [3] the possibility of being punished, and when, about 1782, the “Diskilting Act,” as it was called, was repealed by the influence of the, Duke of Montrose, there were great rejoicings; the event was celebrated by the famous poet Duncan Ban M’Intyre and others, and the dress was again worn, but not so universally as it had been before, as the people gradual1y learnt to be artisans, and to adopt habits of trade and industry, for which it is not so well adapted as for war, the chase, or pastoral pursuits. Still, at the latter end of the 18th century, when the Gordon Highlanders were raised, it was in most districts the ordinary wear.  Of recent years it has been worn chiefly by soldiers and sportsmen.  It is the recognised military uniform of the north.

At this period (1794) the land continued, as formerly, to be let out in large tracts by the lairds to gentlemen “tacksmen,”[5] often their kinsmen ; and the smaller tenants paid rent in money, kind, or labour, not to the laird, but to the tacksmen, who were, in fact, middlemen, and had great power over the tenants and cottars on their farms. Cattle were the principal stock of the country, sheep-farming being introduced only about this time, and not becoming general until much later. Drovers collected great herds, and employed a number of active gillies to drive them to the southern markets.  There was little other employment, and little money ; even well on in the 19th century ploughmen’s wages were £2 10s for the half-year.  Few could speak English.

The Caledonian Canal was not made till after Waterloo.  There was no field for emigration except Canada, and to get there was difficult and costly. There were no county or burgh police, now a favourite employment with young Highlanders; the Post Office was in its infancy,[6] and the railways, which now employ an army of men, did not exist.  The kelp industry and the herring fishery occupied part of the island population; illicit distillation (for whisky had begun to replace ale as the favourite drink of the Highlanders), oak-barking in spring, or shearing the corn in the neighbouring lowlands in autumn, gave a questionable or occasional employment to some on the mainland, but there was practically no outlet except the army for enterprising young men.

In 1793, the Rev. J. L. Buchanan published an account of the time of the Western Isles, where he had spent nine years as missionary minister from the Church of Scotland, commissioned by the S.P.C.K.  In the introduction he apologises to his readers for any grammatical errors, as he had seldom spoken English during that [4] period. He describes the huts of the small tenants as “remarkably naked, open, destitute of furniture; they sleep in a blanket in any corner ; cows, goats, and poultry have the common benefit of the fire.  The windows are but holes made through the thatch immediately above the side walls. In gentlemen’s kitchens, which are separate from the main house, men and women all sleep together. Men’s money wages are from 10s to 40s. a year, and out of it to pay for damage by carelessness.  Two meals daily is usual for small tenants and scallags.[7]  Salt is very scarce, and their diet of 11sh and potatoes, or sometimes, if in good circumstances, broth with bread, potatoes, and mutton, is often eaten without salt; barley or bere meal the only bread, and not always that. The land is worked with the “cas chrom” and “cas direach.”[8]  The scallag is sometimes formally tied up and flogged.  Mr Buchanan gives credit to the minister of Tygheary, in North Uist, who has also a large farm, for “never having been known to kick, beat, or scourge, or in any way lift his hand against his scallags in the whole course of his life.”  The scallag builds his own house with sods and wood.  If he is sent to another part of the farm, he carries his cabers with him and forms a new hut.  He works four or five days for his master, and on the sixth cultivates a patch of land for himself; he is allowed brogues of horse or cow hide or sealskin to wear in carrying seaware over rocks, etc., but often goes barefoot, with perhaps “mogans,” i.e. hose-legs and bare feet.  He is also given tartan hose, a coarse coat, and a blanket or two.  Mr Buchanan says the large landowners are generally more considerate to their people than the smaller lairds or tacksmen, though many of these are very kindly.  Among the proprietors he mentions as kind masters—the word applied by small tenants to the laird—are the Duke of Argyll and MacKenzie of Torridon.  He notices the change from servitude to freedom in Lewis, brought about by MacKenzie, “the present noble-minded proprietor.”  He alludes to the example set by Lord MacDonald of Sleat, which he hopes will soon be followed by others, of taking the small tenants out of the control of the tacksmen, and giving them holdings direct from himself at a fixed rent in money or kind, which makes them, he remarks, much more comfortable and independent.  This seems to be the beginning of “crofter holdings” in the west; but the word “crofter” is not mentioned, and appears to be unknown till introduced from the south at a later period.  He also praises MacDonald of Boisdale as an honourable gentleman and a great agricultural improver, who distributes justice and preserves [5] peace and order among his people, like a prudent and kind master of a family, and is loved and esteemed accordingly.[9]

In describing the people generally he says, “They have a fine vein of poetry and music, vocal and instrumental; had the language been more generally understood, the Gaelic music would have been introduced on every stage on which taste and elegance prevailed.”  They are also spirited dancers, using the violin for dancing in the house, the pipe for weddings, funerals, etc., and in great houses the piper plays before the door at meal-times.  He mentions that the Highland Society of London gives prizes for pipe-music. The men were handy at making implements of husbandry, etc.  They wear, he says, the short coat, the philabeg and short hose, bonnets sewn with black ribbon around the brim and a slit behind, with the same ribbon in a knot.  Their coats are commonly tartan, striped with black, red, and other colours, after a pattern made by themselves or other ingenious contriver; waistcoats commonly of the same, but the “feilabegs”[10] are often of fine Stirling plaid, if their money can afford them.  When going herring fishing they dress something like sailors.  They tan their brogues with the root of the tormentilla, which they dig from the hillocks by the sea; the poorer sort often go barefoot even in winter.  The people, he continues, retain a certain dignity of manner, constantly addressing each other as “duineuasal” and “bheanuasal” (gentleman and gentlewoman), raising their bonnets on meeting.  He complains of the scarcity of church services, mentioning one parish church where there was only occasional worship of any sort, and where the Communion had not been dispensed for several years.  A hundred years ago there was only one Established Church in a parish perhaps thirty miles long, so that attendance could not be very regular.  The Roman Catholic Church was then, as it still is, strong in certain districts of Inverness, Banff, and Aberdeen, as was the Episcopal Church in some parts of the Highlands where it has now few adherents.[11]  But though imbued with a strong religious sentiment, I doubt if the Highlanders of that time could be called “kirk-greedy.”

Mr Buchanan’s remarks refer to the West Highlands and Islands, but the above description applies more or less to the whole Highlands, where the life was one of hardship, tempered by intelligent and even intellectual amusements—music, poetry, dancing, [6] and, in the long winter evenings, story-telling by the dim light of the peat fire, tales of warlike deeds handed down from generation to generation.  I have heard them told in the present day, in probably the self-same words as were used in the “Fifteen,” the “Forty-five,” round the bivouac fires in the Peninsula, or in the herring boats off Barra Head.

The Highlanders were distinguished from their Lowland neighbours by a natural courtesy of manner, which is remarked upon by a French traveller who visited the Highlands in 1786.  He describes the people as “poor but honest”; he had never seen “such civility without the shadow of servility, such plain frankness without the least rudeness, such a poverty and such contentment.”  He also mentions their pride in being an old and unconquered race.[12]  They were not, however, without the love of gain common to mountaineers, and were perhaps deficient in that strong sense of fairplay which is an attribute of the Saxon.

In summer the young men and women went to the “aris” in the higher grazings to make cheese and butter for winter use, practising feats of strength and agility in the evening, or playing the fiddle, the pipe, or the trump; rather despising, perhaps, than respecting the “dignity of labour,”[13] but obedient to parents and to those whose authority they recognised and respected.  A people, in short, whose feelings, traditions, and present circumstances rendered them ready to join the army as a profession at once honourable, profitable, and suited to their inclinations.

Encouraged, no doubt, by the gallant service rendered by the first regiment of Highlanders, the 42^nd, Mr Pitt, when Prime Minister, about 1757, had recommended the King to attach the Highlanders to his Government by employing them in his service,[14] and in his celebrated speech in Parliament nine years later, he says “I sought for merit wherever it was to be found; it is my boast that I was the first Minister who looked for it and found it in the mountains of the North.  I called it forth, and drew into your service a hardy and intrepid race of men, who, when left by your jealousy, became a prey to the artifice of your enemies, and had gone nigh to have overturned the State in the war before the last.  These men in the last war were brought to combat on your side; they served with fidelity, as they fought with valour, and conquered for you in every part of the world.”

 Jean, Duchess of Gordon
After the painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds in the possession of
The Duke of Richmond and Gordon at Goodwood

The first of these was the 89^th Highland Regiment, raised by the family influence of the young Duke, who was a captain in it, while his two brothers, Lord William and Lord George, were respectively lieutenant and ensign.  The regiment was commanded by his step-father, Major Morris.

Upwards of 900 men were assembled at Gordon Castle in December 1759, and marched to Aberdeen.  They went from there to Portsmouth and embarked for the East Indies, December 1760.  The Duke wished to accompany them as his brothers did, but King George II objected to his doing so, saying that a Scottish Duke had more important duties at home than the command of a company in India.

A detachment of this regiment under Major Hector Munro, took an active part in suppressing the mutiny at Patna. The 89^th distinguished itse1f at the battle of Buxar in 1764, where the enemy lost 6000 kil1ed and wounded and 130 pieces of cannon. Soon after, the regiment was ordered home, and it was reduced in 1765. The men of this corps were remarkable for their fidelity and good conduct.  At this time, though the Militia had long existed in England, there was none in Scotland; but what were called Fencible Regiments were raised at various times, some for service in Scotland only, others for the defence of the three kingdoms while the regular army was engaged abroad, and in 1799 some were even raised for service, in Europe and America.[16]   They were disciplined and armed in the [8] same manner as troops of the line; Fencible officers ranked junior to those of the line, but took precedence of the Militia.[17]

In 1778 the Duke of Gordon raised a Fencible Regiment in the counties of Inverness, Moray, Banff, and Aberdeen-a very efficient corps, which was reduced in 1783.[18]

The country being again in danger in 1793, the Duke raised another regiment of Gordon Fencibles, and his commission as colonel was dated March 3^rd. The uniform was the full Highland garb.  Upwards of 300 men were raised on the Gordon estates in Lochaber, Badenoch, and Strathspey, an equal number on other estates in these neighbourhoods, and 150 men from the Lowland parts of Aberdeenshire, Banff, and Elgin.[19]

The following account is taken from the personal reminiscences of an officer of the Royal Marines, who acted as quartermaster to this regiment, and who set out to Aberdeen to join, after making arrangements for accoutrements, etc., for the regiment in London. “I found Lieutenant-Colonel Woodford, formerly of the Guards, an active clever officer and a great disciplinarian, in command.  Recruits daily arriving, the clans of Cameron, M’Pherson, M’Intosh, and Frazer had joined their standards to the Gordons.  In a month we were ready for inspection, 600 strong, and formed a fine body of young men. We went to Edinburgh, where the forming of flank companies excited no little jealousy among several of the Highland officers, especially one young chief, who had no conception, when he brought fourscore of his clan as volunteers, that they were to be disunited, and said in the mess-room, ‘If the commanding officer dared to draft any of his men to other companies, he would order his piper to sound his gathering, and march them back to Lochaber’; that his men were gentlemen, and he would not have them associate with ‘Botich nam brikis.’[20]   It had to be explained that his men were now soldiers and must go to the company they suited, and that a court-martial might prove a disagreeable commencement to his own military career.

In the spring of 1795, on account of the alarm of invasion, it was thought necessary to order the regiment to England, along with seven other regiments of Fencibles raised for the defence of Scotland. This was done without consulting the colonels, though the express condition in their letters of service was that they were only to be ordered out of Scotland “in case of actual invasion of the [9] island.”  The men therefore objected to go, and were to be seen in knots talking in Gaelic with an air of mystery.  The lieutenant-colonel marched them by detachments to the chapel and, ascending the pulpit, lectured them, but without any effect in allaying the suspicion that they were being imposed upon.  He did not understand the Highland character.  At last an express was sent to Gordon Castle.  The Duke arrived in forty-eight hours; the regiment was paraded; he explained in a few well-chosen words the nature of the service required, that they were called for the defence of their country, and he trusted that any soldier who was such a dastard as to refuse such service would step out of the ranks and he should have his discharge.  Though raised for the defence of Scotland, England was now in danger, and none but cowards would refuse the call.  They would find him at their head.  The men waved their bonnets, crying that they were ready to follow his Grace to the world’s end, and they embarked at Leith in high spirits.

The King, never having seen a Highland regiment, ordered them to London (in 1796), where he reviewed them, and expressed himself much gratified at their appearance.

The Duchess of [10] Gordon and her daughters were present amoung the royal group, wearing Highland bonnets and Gordon tartan plaids.  The royal family particularly noticed the sergeant-major, Dugald Campbell,[21] who is described as a “most superb specimen of the human race.”

This regiment returned to Scotland in 1796 and later was reduced.

The three corps mentioned above may be considered as the forbears of the distinguished national regiment whose conduct in war has done much to preserve the blessings of peace at home, whose conduct in peace has upheld the character of their country wherever duty has called them, and whose career of upwards of a hundred years it will be my endeavour to describe.

This page was last updated on Saturday, 28 November 2009