Strange HLI Piper

[gordon92]

I recently ran across this photo of a Highland Light Infantry piper. Everything looks kosher on the uniform except the glengarry. Oddly, the glengarry is not only diced, unusual for a piper, but is also of Sutherland dicing that is definitely foreign to the HLI. Perplexing?

He wears a piper green frock indicating that the setting is India, or he is a VB piper at home. The kilt with the white center stripe was worn by 1st HLI pipers in India 1902-1914.

I am disinclined to think that this a photographer provided outfit. It was a fairly complex procedure to fold the plaid to vertically configure the white stripe on the chest portion and to align the horizontal stripes on the fall portion of the plaid with those on the kilt. It seems extremely unlikely that anyone outside the regiment would have been able to achieve that result.

Anybody have any theories how this fellow would have been wearing this strange glengarry?

[FROGSMILE]

I do not believe he is a regular. Wearing a non standard glengarry in the HLI, a regiment so particular about dress, just wouldn't happen in my opinion. I think that he is from a VB and that the glengarry relates to a forebear (RVC) unit.

[gordon92]

I do not believe he is a regular. Wearing a non standard glengarry in the HLI, a regiment so particular about dress, just wouldn't happen in my opinion. I think that he is from a VB and that the glengarry relates to a forebear (RVC) unit.

Yes, this makes sense. I will see if Grierson offers any clues.

[Ron Abbott]

Yes, the middle row of dicing certainly makes it appear to be a (non pipers) Argylls glengarry.

Three tassled sporran would be right but I've not seen that specific sporran cantle before.

No dirk worn (?)

[FROGSMILE]

Yes, the middle row of dicing certainly makes it appear to be a (non pipers) Argylls glengarry.

Three tassled sporran would be right but I've not seen that specific sporran cantle before.

No dirk worn (?)

A typical VRC/VB hotchpotch.

[gordon92]

Grierson's Records of the Scottish Volunteer Force makes no mention of this style of glengarry in connection with any of the HLI's VRCs/VBs.

[FROGSMILE]

Grierson's Records of the Scottish Volunteer Force makes no mention of this style of glengarry in connection with any of the HLI's VRCs/VBs.

I think that the sporran (cantle), let alone the glengarry, tells us that he is not a regular.

[Ron Abbott]

Not sure about the furniture on the crossbelt for the HLI either.

Can anyone make out what the collar dogs are? Don't appear to be the usual HLI ones and yet the plaid brooch does appear to have the HLI badge in the centre and it may be an HLI badge on the crossbelt.

That glengarry just doesn't add up, but as you say, some anomalies but he's too well turned out for it to likely be a photographic 'makey up'.

[FROGSMILE]

Not sure about the furniture on the crossbelt for the HLI either.

Can anyone make out what the collar dogs are? Don't appear to be the usual HLI ones and yet the plaid brooch does appear to have the HLI badge in the centre and it may be an HLI badge on the crossbelt.

That glengarry just doesn't add up, but as you say, some anomalies but he's too well turned out for it to likely be a photographic 'makey up'.

If one compares him with 1st and 2nd Battalion pipers for the 20-years preceding WW1 it is obvious that there is no way that he is a regular.

[gordon92]

Not sure about the furniture on the crossbelt for the HLI either.

Can anyone make out what the collar dogs are? Don't appear to be the usual HLI ones and yet the plaid brooch does appear to have the HLI badge in the centre and it may be an HLI badge on the crossbelt.

That glengarry just doesn't add up, but as you say, some anomalies but he's too well turned out for it to likely be a photographic 'makey up'.

The collar dogs, to my eye, look like the expected miniature HLI badges. The badge on the crossbelt also appears to be HLI.

Agree, as Frogsmile says, that he is not a regular.

[Guest]

We think it may well be a piper in the Calcutta Scottish regiment. The glengarry which we still make today is green and white. It is hard to see the badge detail but they look about the right shape for the regiments badge. The tartan could be Hunting Stewart as worn by the regiment and the stripe we can see could easily be the yellow stripe. You can just make out other elements of the sett which is right for Htg Stewart.  Later in the regiments life the pipers wore plain glengarries, but this maybe when the regiment was first formed in 1914. We have no pictures of any pipers at that time, so can't check all the details but the time scale is right.

 

The Calcutta Scottish was a regiment of volunteers of Scottish descent raised in 1914 as an infantry regiment of the British Indian Army. The regiment formed part of the army reserves of the  (AFI). The regimental dress uniform was Hunting Stewart tartan. 

 

 

Just a thought

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MaureenE]

There is a FIBIS Fibiwiki page Calcutta Scottish

https://wiki.fibis.org/w/Calcutta_Scottish

 

Contains links to two photos, one 1916, one 1925. The photos look different to me to the one above.  The hose tops definitely look different, but perhaps items vary over time?

 

FIBIS might be able to provide you a better copy of "their" photo if you ask, but I don't know what the policy is.

 

Cheers

Maureen

[FROGSMILE]

The three rows of dark colour in an identical shade (as opposed to the white) fits with House of Labrhans hypotheses.  Only British Army regiments wearing the Argyll and Sutherland pattern of glengarry (with its three rows of red) wore the identical dark shade of dicing on a glengarry.  The HLI and others had two rows of the same shade (red) and one row of a contrasting shade (either navy or green) alternating with red.  This contrast was usually obvious even with black and white photography.

Edited 13 July , 2019 by FROGSMILE

[Ron Abbott]

 

 

 

I can see why you think it might he might be from the Calcutta Scottish due to the glengarry and what can be made of the cap badge. but I'm not so sure.

 

That tartan does not look like Hunting Stewart. Far from it.  There are many photos available of the 9th Royal Scots in their Hunting Stewart kilts from what appears to be around the same era, and using the photographic processes back then,.,.....it comes out looking nothing like that. 

 

The yellow stripe is a possible problem.  It rarely shows up and yet in this photo that stripe is blazing out at you !

 

I tried enlarging the photo to better see the tartan but can't make out whether it has an irregular sett or not.  

 

The pipers of the Calcutta Scottish in every previous photo I have seen, wore plain glengarries and sporrans with six tassles.  The badge on the plaid brooch and the cross belt do not appear to be those of the Calcutta Scottish.  I won't comment of the collar badges as they may or may not be the same as a cap badge.  And, none of these are the cap badges of the (original) Calcutta Rifle Volunteers either. 

 

I've held an early piper's plaid brooch for the Calcutta Scottish in the past and it was different to that.  Although it had the badge in the centre, it was surrounded by a raised wreath.  hardly any plain metal in sight.   I've also seen a later one which was more akin to those worn by the Argylls.

 

The hose don't really take us anywhere.  Early photos show green/white dicing and later ones....tartan hose.    

And yet the frock appears correct, but then it does for other units which had been in India.

 

I would say that if there is one thing in that photo that points to the Calcutta Scottish being a possibility.......it's the glengarry.  But not for a piper unless as you say, they only had the diced ones available at the time. 

 

However for your own information, by complete and utter coincidence I was researching a piper who was in the Calcutta Scottish just two days ago, namely John William Boath (b 14th Oct 1897 in Perth, Scotland).   Served in the Calcutta Scottish between 1914 and 1916 and then signed up with the 25th Motor Machine Gun Section.  There is a possibility that he may have been Pipe-Major at one stage as Aad Boode certainly has a man called John Boath recorded in his publication as being Pipe-Major of the Calcutta Scottish (but at an unknown date/time). 

 

Another (more likely) possibility is that the Pipe-Major of the Calcutta Scottish named John Boath may have been his father (also called John Boath) who had been a Piper in the Black Watch and who was discharged from that regiment in Calcutta in 1913.  The father then worked for the mills in Calcutta and may be the man of the same name who remarried in Calcutta in 1932 (source - record on FMP).   

 

There is mention in a newspaper article (Dundee Evening Telegraph d.d. 13th April 1900) of a drummer having stolen his 'regimental trousers' and being convicted for having done so! 

 

Damned drummers........

 

Another Pipe-Major of the Calcutta Scottish in the early 1920s was Herbet Edward MacKenzie (lived 1867 to 1939). 

 

Later, circa 1926; Alexander Hastie appears to have taken over as Pipe-Major of the Calcutta Scottish. 

He came from a well known piping family in Motherwellm Scotland and until 1925 had been Pipe-Major of the (civvie) Dalziel Highland Pipe band.  His brothers (William Orr Hastie and James Orr Hastie) were also Pipe-Majors of other pipe bands, such as the pipes and drums of 'D' Coy. 6th Bn. Lanarkshire Home Guard during WW2.

Awarded the Territorial medal in 1936, Alexander Hastie appears to have still been with the Calcutta Scottish. 

 

Aad Boode also has listed as Pipe-Major of the Calcutta Scottish (circa WW1), a man surnamed 'Stuart' but I've not as yet been able to identify him.