Australian Army Museum of Western Australia > Records

Great Highland Bagpipes

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Overview

The great Highland bagpipe (Scottish Gaelic: a' phìob mhòr pronounced [a ˈfiəp ˈvoːɾ] lit. 'the great pipe') is native to Scotland, and has acquired widespread recognition through its usage in the British military and in pipe bands throughout the world.

Historical information

In the 21st century combatants go to war armed with tanks, fighter planes and warships. It may surprise people to learn that, until 1996, the British government considered the bagpipes to be a bona fide weapon of war.
The classification goes back to the last of the Jacobite Risings. In 1745, Charles Edward Stuart launched an uprising in the Scottish Highlands to reclaim the British throne for his father. Despite some initial successes, Stuart’s forces were crushed at the Battle of Culloden on April 16, 1746.
James Reid was one of several pipers who played at Culloden and were subsequently captured. He was taken to England and put on trial for treason. Reid’s defense was that he was a noncombatant and carried only a bagpipe on the field. However, the commission appointed to the treason cases disagreed.
The commission was headed by the chief baron of the Court of Exchequer who reasoned that Highland regiments “never marched without a piper; and therefor [Reid’s] bagpipe, in the eye of the law, was an instrument of war.” Reid was found guilty of treason and hanged in York, England on November 15, 1746.
The commission’s ruling is considered the first to declare a musical instrument to be a weapon of war. It set a precedent that lasted for hundreds of years. In fact, when they were captured in combat, bagpipes were not inventoried as musical instruments like drums or bugles. Rather, they were listed as weapons along with sabers, rifles, and munitions.

Some 2,500 pipers served in the First World War - in British and other Empire regiments. 600 were wounded and over 500 killed. As we know Scottish-born Anzac Piper Archibald Monk piped the Australian nurses of the 3rd Australian General Hospital into the hospital site at West Mudros on Lemnos on 8th August 1915.

Details

Registration number

cwa-org-32-55-911

Contextual Information

The Australian Army Museum of Western Australia example has a Black Watch tartan bag cover

Links to additional resources

Pipers at Mudros and Lemnos

The pipers of the Trenches

Regimental Tartans

Australian Army Museum of Western Australia

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