David McDowall, 1954-2025

Major-General David McDowall CBE died on April 24, 2025, in his seventy-first year after a brief undisclosed illness.

McDowall had served as the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association’s president for one year following his official appointment at the organization’s 2024 annual general meeting.

He was not yet well known to RSPBA members or the piping and drumming world, but his relatively short but stirring speech at the 2024 World Pipe Band Championships, in which he profusely thanked the competing pipers and drummers, was an impressive introduction for most.

McDowall was a piper who learned with his local Stranraer & District and went on to play with the Royal Signals Pipes & Drums when he joined the British Army as an 18-year-old private.

In the 1980s, he became commander of a squadron in Northern Ireland and a regiment in Bosnia, commander of the 1st Signal Brigade, and Signal Officer-in-Chief, before being made General Officer Commanding the 2nd Infantry Division and Governor of Edinburgh Castle in 2007 until retiring in 2009.

Our sympathies go to David McDowall’s surviving family, his many friends and all in the RSPBA at this sad time.