Simkin’s watercolour of a group of three types of the Cameron Highlanders provides a comparison that emphasises the contrast between the scarlet doublets and tall feather bonnets of the officer and private, with the piper’s green doublet and glengarry dress cap. The pipe banner is blue because of the royal status of the regiment after 1873 when it became the 79th Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders. Before that date they had green banners to match the regimental facings. The pipers always had their collar and cuffs in the same green as the doublet. It is fastened down the front with diamond-shaped buttons and these are also on the cuffs and Inverness skirts. At this stage there were no shoulder wings.
The piper is bearded, perhaps because Simkin based the painting on the 1891 photo, but later paintings and photos show that beards were no longer permitted in the early 20th century. The tartan is the Cameron of Erracht sett as are the ribbons connecting the three drones. The water colour was one of a series that were produced as prints in the Army and Navy Gazette. This one was no.99 published on 7 May 1896.
