Victorian awards to acclaimed pipers up for auction, including MacKay’s quirky 1872 HSL Gold Medal

The Victoria Faithful Service Medal awarded in 1872 by Queen Victoria to Pipe-Major William Ross, her personal piper from 1854 to 1891, will be auctioned on October 7th, with an expected sale of between 4,000 and 5,000 GBP.

The medal includes a bar attached to the ribbon in 1882 for 10 years’ additional service.

Also for sale to the highest bidder is Donald MacKay’s 1872 Northern Meeting Highland Society of London Gold Medal. It’s unusual in that the medal is essentially a former-winners/champion event of the time, since MacKay had already won the Northern Meeting Prize Pipe in 1863, which qualified him for the champions competition. The records subsequently evolved into the Gold Medal/Clasp structure familiar today, introduced in 1887.

The Gold Medal isn’t gold, but gold plate, and is engraved “The Champion Medal of the Highland Society of London awarded to Donald Mackay, Piper to Ballindalloch, Inverness, the best of prize Pibrock [sic] Players 1872.”

At the time, MacKay was piper to Sir George Macpherson-Grant of Ballindalloch, and later became piper to the Prince of Wales, who would eventually become King Edward VII.

The MacKay lot also includes the Jubilee 1887 Medal, the Medal of Recompense, and a Perth Highland Society Silver Prize Medal for winning the Best Dressed Highlander prize.

The lot is expected to realize £800-£1,200.

The back of Ross’s Faithful Service Medal is engraved with “To Mr. William Ross Piper, For Faithful Services to the Queen during 22 Years 1876.”

William Ross was born in Knockbain, Ross-shire, in 1821, and served in the 42nd Royal Highlanders as a boy piper in 1839, ultimately achieving the rank of Pipe-Major in 1854.

He won the Marches, Strathspeys & Reels prize and the Prize Pipe for Piobaireachd at the Northern Meeting in 1853. He made pipes in London, and his collection of 40 piobaireachds and 437 light music compositions is considered a seminal publication of Highland pipe music.

Historic medals awarded to pipers are occasionally put up for auction. In 2017, the Highland Society of London Gold Medal, won by Pipe-Major Willie Ross at the 1902 Argyllshire Gathering, sold for approximately US$1,300 plus a 25% buyer’s premium.

In 2015, a large lot of the great Donald MacPherson’s piping trophies and medals went unsold after a much-discussed auction.

If you’d like to keep these historically important medals in the piping and drumming family, visit the auction house’s site for more details on Lot 528 (Ross) and 529 (MacKay).