16 Facts About George Findlater

Sergeant George Frederick Findlater VC was a Scottish soldier in the British Army, who was awarded the Victoria Cross, Britain's highest award for gallantry, for his role in the Tirah Campaign.

George Findlater was born in 1872 at Turriff, Aberdeenshire, one of eleven children of Alexander George Findlater, a miller, and his wife, Mary Ann Clark.

George Findlater attended the school in Turriff but left at a young age to work as a farm labourer; under the law then in force, children were permitted to leave school at thirteen.

George Findlater first saw active combat there in March 1895, at the Malakand Pass, where he was hit but not wounded; later in the year, he served with the relief force in the Chitral Expedition.

George Findlater was wounded before reaching the hillside, with a superficial wound to his left foot and a broken right ankle.

George Findlater was evacuated to Rawalpindi where he was treated, and unable to continue in the Army as a result of his injuries, he was sent to Netley Hospital to convalesce.

Whilst recovering, George Findlater received a large number of public donations, including sets of bagpipes, and by at least one account, a proposal of marriage.

Whilst popular with the crowds, George Findlater was seen by many of the military establishment as deliberately profiting from the Victoria Cross.

At the start of the First World War, George Findlater re-enlisted in the Army, returning to his old regiment.

George Findlater was posted to the 9th Battalion of the Gordons, a New Army battalion in 15th Division, where he was appointed as the sergeant piper, the battalion's senior piper.

George Findlater served with the regiment through its first year in France, including the Battle of Loos, before being invalided home in December 1915.

George Findlater continued to farm at Forglen, and was a member of the local pipe band at Turriff; from 1927 to 1940 he served as its pipe major.

George Findlater died in early 1942, shortly after his seventieth birthday, of a heart attack.

Whilst his moment of personal celebrity was fleeting, George Findlater remained a popular figure in the public memory, continuing to be a subject of artwork and stories for some years.

George Findlater was the focal point of Edward Hale's painting Piper Findlater winning the VC, Stanley Berkeley's Charge of the Gordon Highlanders, Vereker Hamilton's Piper Findlater at Dargai, Richard Caton Woodville's The Storming of Dargai Heights and Robert Gibb's Dargai.

George Findlater's playing at Dargai, along with the charge itself, became one of the more well-remembered moments of the Gordons' regimental history; they later applied for the Dargai Heights to be recognised as a battle honour, the only one of the nine participating regiments to do so, but were declined.