Full size set of Highland bagpipes known as MacCorquodale's Pipes

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A set of full size Highland bagpipes with chanter, three drones (comprising two tenors and a bass) and mouthpiece. They are turned in cocus wood, mounted with ivory, bone and horn, probably late 18th century.

Three of the stocks and four mounts were replaced in the late 1950s when a tuning cord and bag cover in Campbell tartan were also added. Earlier scholarship might have suggested that such an instrument must be of 19th century date, but it would seem on the basis of examples such as this that the Highland bagpipes reached an apparently more modern stage of evolution in the second half of the 18th century.

This set of pipes was given to the last owner for safekeeping in 1958 by a Miss MacCorquodale, then aged, whose MacCorquodale ancestor, to whom it was said the pipes had first belonged, had played for recruiting and at the formation of the 74th Regiment or Argyllshire Highlanders raised in Argyllshire in 1778 by Colonel John Campbell of Barbreck. This Regiment was embarked for America in May 1778 and served there until 1783 when it returned home to be disbanded at Stirling in the autumn of the same year.

Record details

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• Online ID: 000-000-579-759-C
• Image Rights Holder: National Museums Scotland
• Project: The Bagpipe Collection
  Project description   View all records in project
• Ref: National Museums Scotland  K.1998.1130 (1)
• Date: Late 18th century (date of manufacture)
  
• Material: Cocus wood, ivory, bone and horn
  MacCorquodale's Pipes
  
• Dimensions:
• What: MacCorquodale's Pipes
  
• Subject:
• Who: 74th Regiment or Argyllshire Highlanders (played for the recruiting and formation of the regiment)
  John Campbell (raised regiment)
  Miss MacCroquodale (owner)
  
• Where: Scotland, Argyllshire (place of use)
  
• Event: Raising of the 74th Regiment or Argyllshire Highlanders, Argyllshire, 1778 (played during the event)
  
• Description: Set of Highland bagpipes made of cocus wood mounted with ivory, bone and horn.
  
• References:
  • Campbell, J.L.,. A Collection of Highland Rites and Customes. The Folklore Society, 1975, p. 49.
  • Cheape, Hugh,. The Making of Bagpipes in Scotland. From the Stone Age to the 'Forty-Five, Edinburgh: 1983, pp. 600 - 601. 
  • Cheape, Hugh,. MacCorquodale's Pipes - A Matter for Celebration. The Piper Press, No. 10, 1999, pp. 27 - 31. 
  • Grant, I.F.,. The History of a Clan, 1200 - 1956. London: 1959, p. 377.
  • Sanger, Keith,. Who paid the Pipemaker?. Piping Times, Vol. 40, No. 8, 1998, pp. 28 - 29. 
  • Stewart, David,. Sketches of the Character, Manners and Present State of the Highlanders of Scotland, Second Edition, Vol. Il. Edinburgh: 1822, pp. 19, 113.
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