Down Memory Lane: 'Soldier in the square' has kept a silent vigil over Inverness city centre for 130 years

Holding his rifle, the kilted figure gazes steadfastly out over Inverness as the 130th anniversary approaches of his tour of duty in Station Square, writes columnist Bill McAllister.

The ‘soldier in the square’ represents the Cameron Highlanders, for so long regarded as Inverness-shire’s regiment until army amalgamations – and this year marks the 230th anniversary of the formation of a regiment which was heavy with battle honours.

The memorial was unveiled by Donald Cameron of Lochiel, Lord Lieutenant of Inverness-shire, on July 14, 1893. After Lochiel’s stirring address, the regimental commanding officer Major JM Hunt handed over the monument to the assembled Provost and Magistrates “into their custody for all time to come.”

In 1993, to mark the regiment’s 200th anniversary, Inverness District Council refurbished the monument, restoring iron railings around it.

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It was fitting that Alexander Ross, architect of local landmarks, was Provost when the soldier’s Portland Stone statue was created by London sculptor George Wade. Ross’s skilled eye saw Station Square as the best location, and Highland Railway gifted the land.

It was Sir Alan Cameron of Erracht, having received toyal approval, who raised the regiment at Fort William in August 1793. Initially he wanted his 79th Regiment of Foot only to involve men named Cameron from Lochaber and the Western Isles but broadened it as other regiments competed for men.

The 79th was called the ‘Cameronian Volunteers’ and in January 1794, 1000 members paraded at Stirling where Alan Cameron was appointed lieutenant colonel and commanding officer.

Uniquely, the regimental tartan varied from the recognised government pattern – it was designed by Alan Cameron’s mother, a Macdonnell of Keppoch, blending Cameron and Macdonald tartans.

The Cameronians were despatched to Flanders that August, where they lost 200 men due to disease and severe weather. In the West Indies in the summer of 1795, where yellow fever cost another 200 lives.

Alan Cameron was back in the Highlands in 1798 on a new recruiting drive. In 1801, the regiment was posted to Egypt and fought the French at Aboukir and Alexandria, for which the King granted Cameron’s men their celebrated Sphinx badge and the right to engrave ‘Egypt’ on their colours. If you look at the station side of the statue in the square, you will see a carved Sphinx.

Five years later the Cameron Highlanders became the regiment’s official name. They fought at Corunna in 1808, while at Fuentes d’Onor, Spain, two years later, their commanding officer was killed and 287 casualties sustained.

The regiment distinguished itself fighting Napoleon’s army in 1815 and was one of only four mentioned in dispatches by the Duke of Wellington. Glory at Quatre Bras and Waterloo was hard earned, however, with 103 killed and 353 wounded out of the Camerons’ 675 men.

Piper Kenneth MacKay rallied his hard-pressed comrades by stepping outside the safety of the soldiers’ square formation to play the pibroch ‘War or Peace – the True Gathering of the Clans’. After the victory, MacKay was summoned to Paris to play the same tune for the Emperor of Russia. For his valour, King George III personally presented MacKay with a set of silver mounted bagpipes.

In 1873, Queen Victoria presented new colours and added ‘Queen’s Own’ to the regiment’s title. In the 1881 army reforms, the Camerons were formally named the county regiment of Inverness-shire and five years later their new depot, the Cameron Barracks, was completed.

In 1882 they sailed to Egypt where that autumn they lost 16 men at Tel El Kabir and 10 at Cairo. The regiment took part in the 1884-85 Nile Expedition to Sudan including the Battle of Ginnis. In 1888, they fought the Battle of Atbara.

The pedestal of the Inverness monument bears the names of 142 men, and boy soldier William Rollo, who died in Egypt and Sudan. Far from the heat of Africa, their memory is forever safeguarded by the soldier at the station.

– Sponsored by Ness Castle Lodges.