by DAVID S. FORSYTH, Principal Curator, Scottish History & Archaeology,
National Museums Scotland
.

This article first appeared as part of the Canadian chapter in: Stuart Allan and David Forsyth, Common Cause: Commonwealth Scots and the Great War, published by NMS Enterprises, 2014, and republished in Piping Today magazine in 2016.

The short life of James Cleland Richardson VC is both poignant and pertinent to the broader narrative of the Scottish diaspora at war. It encapsulates the experience of a young, newly-arrived Scottish emigrant to Canada who so very soon after his arrival volunteered to defend his recently left homeland and the Empire. Sadly as with many others who had made similar journeys he was to make the ultimate sacrifice.

Jimmy Richardson was born in the Bellshill in the very heart of the industrial Lanarkshire, the powerhouse of the Scottish economy which had given the west of Scotland the epithet the workshop of the world.  He was educated at Auchinwraith Public School in Blantyre, Bellshill Academy and John Street School in Glasgow.[1] Immediately before leaving for Canada the Richardson family seems to have been living in Rutherglen, a town immediately to the south of Glasgow. According to his emigration records Richardson was an electrician to trade.  This was a very typical occupation for one of the large throng of young Scotsman who entered Canada in the years before the Great War. A large proportion of this emigrant group were highly skilled tradesmen.

Richardson emigrated to Canada in 1913 on board the Parisian, the first large steamer of the famous Allan Line. Leaving from Glasgow he travelled with his father, David, and two of his younger siblings: Alice and David.  The Richardson party landed at Halifax, Nova Scotia on May 23, 1913, this being one of Canada’s major ports for the disembarkation of emigrants. [2] They then made the 6,000 km overland journey by rail to reach British Columbia their chosen destination for their new life in Canada. On arrival at Vancouver aged 17½ he enrolled with the cadet corps of the 72nd Regiment the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada.

The origins of this regiment lay in the years prior to Richardson’s arrival in Vancouver, when in 1909 members of a number of Vancouver’s leading Scottish associational groups came together to discuss the proposal of raising a Highland regiment for the city. After canvassing for potential backing for this initiative, a meeting was held on May 11, 1909, in the rooms of St. Andrews and Caledonian Societies rooms to discuss the issue and the idea was received favourably by all of those present.

•The bagpipes of James Richardson VC of the 16th (Canadian Scottish) Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force. This set of bagpipes dates back to the early years of the twentieth century. The bag is covered in the Lennox tartan and the drones are made from blackwood, the traditional wood for this part of the instrument. The tuning slides on the drone and the round sole at the end of the chanter are made of ivory. The pipes are incomplete through damage, probably as result of having lain on the battlefield for some months before their eventual recovery.  © Courtesy of the British Columbia Legislative Committee/Visions West. Photography of Victoria, British Columbia

This subject continued to be discussed with in Vancouver’s Scottish circles and continued to gather the necessary support which would sustain the new regiment. Representatives from the various societies met again on January 17, 1910, where they were informed that an application had been sent to Canada’s Minister of Militia in Ottawa to seek his permission to raise a Highland regiment in Vancouver. The founders had decided to apply for the number 72 for their new regiment. There were two reasons for this, the number was vacant on the Canadian Militia List and that it was the regimental number of a very distinguished Highland regiment: the Seaforth Highlanders.

On November 24, 1910, the founders received an authorisation from Canada’s Militia Department to allow the formation of a new regiment in Vancouver bearing the number 72, and with approval to wear the same uniform and tartan as the Seaforth Highlanders of the Imperial service. The much desired official recognition of their affiliation with Seaforth Highlanders in the home country came on April 15, 1912, when the regiment received consent to use the name 72nd Seaforth Highlanders of Canada. 

Soon after the foundation of the unit, the next logical step was for the Canadian Seaforths to form a Regimental Pipes and Drums band. This they did, and it has the distinction of being the oldest continuously active pipe band in British Columbia.

•The earliest extant photograph of Cadet James Richardson (extreme right) of the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada. By the kind permission of the Commanding Officer of the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada

Richardson would have joined up, and then met for training with his new comrades in the Seaforths at the castellated Beatty Street Drill Hall in downtown Vancouver. Two years after its initial formation the Canadian Seaforths established a cadet force. The need to find like-minded friends in a strange city, and the prospect of continuing to playing the pipes must have encouraged the seventeen-year old Richardson to join the Seaforth cadets, which he did in 1913 not long after his arrival in Vancouver. [3]

Richardson had been a Boy Scout while living with his family in Rutherglen, an industrial town just south of Glasgow. Given his speedy enlistment into the cadets and the regimental pipe band it can be assumed that Richardson had become an accomplished piper back home in Scotland. This is borne out by newspaper reports from the time which reveal that  he had become a regular competitor on the British Columbian Highland games circuit; appearing at games  in Vancouver, North Vancouver and over on Vancouver Island at the gatherings held at the provincial capital, Victoria. However, not only was Richardson a regular competitor, he was also clearly successful. At the time of Richardson’s death, his father David had in his possession three gold medals for piping won by his late son. At the time of his enlistment Richardson recorded his father, David Richardson as the chief of police in Chilliwack, BC. Richardson senior having pursued the career he had followed in Scotland, having been listed as a sub-inspector of police on his son’s birth certificate in 1895.

Early on Richardson had demonstrated his great personal courage, with no thought to his own safety, in his response to an incident which happened in 1914 during the course of an ordinary working day. As a sought-after skilled tradesman Richardson had found employment in a Vancouver factory, which was situated close to an inlet of the Pacific Ocean known as False Creek, which at that time was at the very heart of the city’s industrial district.  A call went up that a young boy had fallen into the water and that it was feared that he was in danger of drowning.  The young Richardson immediately ran outside to help; diving into the creek in what unfortunately turned out to be a vain attempt to save the youth’s life. A similar display of bravery would then be played out only two years later at the Battle of the Somme in October 1916, when Richardson would ask of his commanding officer that he might be allowed to play the company ‘over the top’ in their advance towards the enemy line.

Following the outbreak of the First Word War in August 1914, Richardson quickly volunteered for service in the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF).  He was ‘taken on strength’, in the military parlance of the time, on September 23, 1914, at Valcartier Base, Québec. Richardson was enlisted in September 1914 as a private and of course given his musical prowess as a piper with the 16th Infantry Battalion (The Canadian Scottish) CEF for which the Seaforths provided the largest contingent, consisting of 25 officers and 514 men. Initially the Canadian Seaforths had been refused the request of their Commanding Officer to be sent overseas as a separate unit.  Indeed the Seaforths were not alone as the Canadian Department of Militia and Defence refused all such requests from the existing militia units. [4]

However, as the local Scottish regiment they became extremely effective recruiting agents around the city of Vancouver. Through their efforts a further 41 officers and 1637 other ranks were recruited and who were then deployed to a wide range of the newly-created CEF battalions, destined for overseas service. Richardson would have joined a new amalgamated pipe band made up of pipers and drummers from the three other regiments of the Canadian Militia who were integrated to form the 16th Battalion CEF: the 91st Canadian Highlanders (Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders), the 79th Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders and the 50th Regiment (Gordon Highlanders) a regiment of fellow British Columbians from Victoria. [5]

The 16th Battalion CEF finally arrived in France on St Valentine’s Day 1915.  Richardson and the 16th Battalion served with the 1st Canadian division and saw action in many of the main engagements of the first two years of the War.  Of the numerous battles in which the 16th CEF engaged during the Somme offensive of 1916, one of the most difficult was the Battle of Ancre Heights on October 8, 1916, which had as one of its main objectives the seizure of the heavily defended Regina Trench, Germany’s longest trench on the Western Front. This assault by the 16th, including Richardson’s company was centred just to the north of the nearby village of Courcelette. 

Facing enemy rifles, machineguns, mortars, and artillery, the advancing Canadians were particularly vulnerable while they attempted to cross ‘no man’s land’, the area between the trench systems of the two opposing forces. Frequently a piper would go in with a company has they attempt to capture the enemy trenches. Though he was not originally detailed for the attack on Regina Trench that day, the 20-year-old Richardson pleaded successfully with his commanding officer to accompany the troops, whom he piped over the top. The advancing company encountered a barrage of enemy fire and almost intractable wire which had not been cut by the artillery. [6]

At this desperate point, at which the company commander had been killed and the casualty figures were mounting, Richardson volunteered to pipe one more time. He called out to the company sergeant-major Arden Mackie ‘Wull I gie them wund [wind]?  Keen to see morale and momentum restored from its dangerously low ebb Mackie consented to Richardson’s request, and replied without hesitation ‘Aye mon, gie ‘em wind’. [7] For some ten minutes, fully exposed, Richardson ‘strode up and down outside the wire, playing his pipes with the greatest coolness’, while a ‘storm of fire swirled past him on either side’. The citation to Richardson’s decoration further elaborated on the situation: “The effect was instantaneous. Inspired by his splendid example, the company rushed the wire with such fury and determination that the obstacle was overcome and the position captured.” [8]

The Battalion’s commanding-officer who made the recommendation was Lieutenant-Colonel C.W. Peck VC. Though not a Scot, on the efficacy of the of the pipes Peck was adamant that: “the purpose of war is to win victories, and if one can do this better by encouraging certain sentiments and traditions, why shouldn’t it be done?” [9]

Given his opinion of the significance of pipers in the field, unsurprisingly it was Peck, who was then a major and Richardson’s company commander, who made the recommendation at the time that Richardson should receive the VC for his conspicuous bravery on the day.  However, for technical reasons there was a two-year delay before Richardson’s award was finally gazetted on October 22, 1918. 

•Richardson’s family at his gravestone at Adanac Cemetery.  © David Boulding

Later in the attack, Richardson had participated in bombing operations (grenade throwing) during which both he and his company sergeant-major had captured two Germans in a dug-out. Shortly afterwards Richardson was ordered to escort the now wounded company sergeant-major and the two prisoners back to British lines. As he led them away he suddenly realised that he had left his pipes on the battlefield. Despite being told by his company commander to leave the pipes where they lay, Richardson placed his wounded comrade and the two prisoners in the relative safety of a shell hole.

In returning into No Man’s Land Richardson was presumably hit by enemy fire. He was initially listed as missing in action, however, as he was never seen again and was officially presumed to have died on
October 9, 1916.

On October 22, 1918, Richardson was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest British award for gallantry, for his actions at Regina Trench. He was one of four members of the 16th Battalion to win this decoration, one of whom was another Lanarkshire Lad: Private William Johnstone Milne from Cambusnethan. The others included Pipe Major James Groat (Distinguished Conduct Medal and Military Medal) and Piper George Firth Paul (Military Medal). However, Richardson had the great distinction of being only the third piper within the Imperial forces to have received the Victoria Cross.

Even while en route to Great Britain the 16th battalion was still dressed in the four different uniform, tartans and cap badges of its constituent units. Richardson’s pipes were swathed in the Lennox tartan which was a highly irregular choice for a military tartan. However, this is explained by the fact that the 16th Battalion was a newly formed unit made up of a number of constituent companies, each already using an existing tartan.  

Unsurprisingly from the earliest years of their formation the Canadian Seaforths adopted the Seaforth MacKenzie tartan of their associated Imperial regiment. The military authorities were of the firm opinion that members of the new Battalion must relinquish all attachments to their former Militia regiments and forge a new loyalty to their Expeditionary Force battalion. The first regimental historian of the 16th, Lt Col HM Urquhart described this situation thus that a ‘new clan or family, had to begin’. Therefore this new fighting clan had to make its own mark and become imbued with its own traditions around which it could fight as a cohesive unit. On December 16, 1914, while training on Salisbury Plain the battalion was granted that all important, unifying subtitle which summed up its common cause: ‘The Canadian Scottish’.

The reason for the choosing the Lennox tartan was simply that the wife of the battalion’s founding Commanding Officer, Lt Col JE Leckie, was of the Lennox family. Thus the pipers and drummers of the 16th Battalion were kitted out in kilts made out of this tartan.  Leckie was well attuned to the martial traditions of the Highland regiments and was keen that his pipers should continue the tradition of playing the Battalion into battle.

The 16th Battalion lost another piper on the very same day that Richardson was declared missing and presumed dead.  This second casualty was John Parks who had been a member of the pipe band of the 50th Regiment (Gordon Highlanders), before being assigned to the 16th Battalion along with his comrades.

However, what marks out the story of James Richardson and his pipes is not only his evident courage, but also an intriguing detective story which led to rediscovery of Richardson’s pipes and their subsequent repatriation to Canada. 

It is not entirely clear what happened to Richardson’s body after his death on October 1916. Though it would appear to have lain on the battlefield. As one might expect in the confusion of war there are a number of remaining mysteries surrounding the events around the handling of Richardson’s remains.  As to when Richardson was buried the first time round and by whom? There is also the possibility that his body could have been located in an inaccessible part of No Man’s Land where it had lain for several months? 

Retired Pipe Major Roger McGuire [10] had also conducted research into Richardson’s initial burial and the subsequent exhumation.  Through correspondence with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) in 2003, he was informed that Richardson had been exhumed from plot 57c.M.16.A.4.6 on June 15, 1920. McGuire was able to ascertain that Richardson’s remains had been identified from the cross placed on the grave by the Graves Registration Unit at the time of the original burial, though the CWGC did not have any records of who was actually present at his initial burial. At that time it proved impossible to secure an exhumation report. Richardson’s remains and those of his fallen comrades were then reinterred at Adanac Cemetery, Miraumont, close to where Richardson fell at Courcelette. The name Adanac is simply Canada spelled backwards, the cemetery was made from the graves which were brought in from the surrounding battlefields.

One theory is that the Rev Major Edward Yeld Bate could have been present at Richardson’s initial burial, as the British Army chaplain. According to a little card which had been kept with the pipes during their time at Ardvreck, these were the ‘bagpipes found on the battlefield of the Somme near Courcelette in February 1917’. Unfortunately Major Bate did not commit to paper any written comments which personally linked him to the discovery of the pipes.

•Richardson’s repatriated pipes on Wednesday, November 8, 2006, carried by Cadet Josh MacDonald of the Canadian Scottish Regiment (Princess Mary’s).  Photo Victoria Times, Victoria, British Columbia.

One rather curious press report featured in the Manitoba Free Press on December 5, 1918, not long after Richardson’s family accepted his Victoria Cross, categorically states that Richardson’s body was found on the morning of October 10, 1916. This article was based on the testimony of an officer of a Manitoban battalion which had been detailed to take over the sector of the line previously held by the 16th Battalion. While bringing back the men who had been wounded during the attacks of the previous day when Richardson had piped, the un-named Manitoban officer stated: ‘that an officer form an adjoining company came upon the body of a piper and the blood-stained pipes’. If true this is the only piece of evidence which suggests that Richardson did successfully retrieve his pipes prior to his death. Unfortunately this report does not expand on whether or not the pipes were buried with the dead piper. Although the assumption can be made that they must have been.

Richardson has been erroneously described as being a member of the Manitoba Regiment. This confusion must have come from the fact that this unit took over the length of the trenches previously occupied by Richardson’s 16th Battalion.

Perhaps there are other possibilities as to how a set of First World War era Canadian-Scottish pipes with such a distinctive tartan bag ended up in Ardvreck School, near Crieff in Perthshire. However it is difficult to come to any conclusion other than that it was through Bate’s presence near Courcelette that the pipes eventually ended up at Ardvreck School.   There are very sound reasons to believe the pipes were in Major Bate’s possession in the years before his appointment to the school. 

Presumably due to Bate’s continuing, and understandable assumption that the pipes must have been Scottish, he presented them to Ardvreck before his departure from the school in the early 1930s to take up a teaching position in England. It was not until the later 1990s that Tomas Christie, the father of a pupil at the school, who had become so interested in the pipes in the display and then researched their origins that the truth behind them came to light. The most obvious and jarring issue was the fact that the pipe bag was covered in the Lennox tartan, not a tartan worn by any Scottish regiment. Further investigation as to which units served in the vicinity of Courcelette where they were recovered reveal that no Scottish regiment ever fought there.

Another complicating factor is the death of Piper Park around the same time, could the pipes, now said to be those belonging to Richardson, have belonged to him instead?  Piping experts, including Retired Pipe Major Roger McGuire of the Canadian Scottish Regiment, have closely examined the photographs of the 16th Battalion’s pipe band.  Among the distinguishing features which helped McGuire in his identification was the fact that the sole of each the two chanters were quite different. It was on this basis among other factors which meant that the pipes could be claimed, with some degree of confidence, to be as those of James Richardson.

In 2003 in the grounds of the Museum at Chilliwack, BC Richardson was commemorated by a life-size bronze statue of him playing the pipes. Furthermore as a symbol of the importance of this story to Canada, in a ceremony on November 8, 2006, the British Columbia Legislature repatriated the pipes to Canada. The main foyer of the Legislative Assembly is now the permanent home of Richardson’s bagpipes.

[1] Canadian Dictionary of Biography entry on James Cleland Richardson VC. http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/richardson_james_cleland_14E.html

[2] The author is very grateful to Mrs Carole Wilson of Glenlyon for the genealogical research on Richardson’s family which has greatly augmented this chapter. 

[3] The author is very grateful to Paul Ferguson, Curator of the Chilliwack Museum, BC for supplying information on Richardson’s early years in Vancouver, and particularly for sharing with me Richardson’s entry in Sir O’Moore Creagh and EM Humphris, eds., The Victoria Cross, 1856-1920.

[4] Wendy Ugolini, ‘Scottish Commonwealth Regiments’, p.492 in Edward M. Spiers, Jeremy A. Crang and Matthew J. Strickland, eds. A Military History of Scotland, Edinburgh, 2012.

[5] DM Drysdale, Pipe Band of the 16th Battalion (Canadian Scottish) CEF, unpublished paper, p.1.

[6] The fullest account of the battle is in the Battalion’s official history: HM Urquhart, The History of the 16th Battalion (the Canadian Scottish) Canadian Expeditionary Force in the Great War, 1914-1919, pp.180-187. 

[7] Mark Zeuhlke, Brave Battalion: the remarkable saga of the 16th Battalion (Canadian Scottish) in the First World War, electronic resource, c.2008, p.

[8] London Gazette, no.30967, 22 October 1918.

[9] Drysdale, p.2.

[10] The author is very grateful to Roger McGuire who has very generously shared his own notes and research on James Richardson.