Charles Cameron

-Pipe Major- (? - 1943)

Son of P/M John Cameron – who was a pupil of Donald MacKay and Sandy Cameron, and who won the Gold Medal at Oban in 1885, the Gold Medal at Inverness is 1892 and the Clasp in 1899 – Charles Cameron joined the Cameron Highlanders in 1908. He became a Non-Commissioned Officer and featured in the piping and dancing prizes at the Regimental games. It was when he was with the 1st Battalion around 1913 that he met Captain Craig Brown, the subject of his most famous tune. He served with the 1st Camerons throughout the Great War under Pipe Major Willie Cruickshank and when Cruickshank retired in 1922, Craig-Brown appointed him Pipe Major, a posting he held until 1928 when he became Pipe Major of the Depot at Inverness. He retired from the Depot in 1933, became tutor and Pipe Major of the Dagenham Girl Pipers and died in 1943. In the article cited below, David Murray noted that when Cameron died he was “still a young man.”
 
JM, June 2006
-with notes from “How the Short Fuse Fizzer Spawned a Classic 6/8 March,” by David Murray, Piping Times, December 2003.