John Wilson
(shown above) was born in
Edinburgh in 1906 and began learning the pipes
in 1915 from Pipe Major Robert Thomson of the
Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders at Edinburgh
Castle. He progressed quickly and in 1917 was
sent for tuition to Roderick Campbell, who won
the Gold Medal at Oban in 1908 and was one of
the leading composers and teachers of the day.
They developed a most productive teacher-pupil
relationship and were good friends until
Campbell died in 1937.
On the eve of Armistice
Day in 1918 he was enjoying the usual
playful explorations of a 12-year-old when
he found and accidentally ignited the
detonator of a stray hand grenade and blew
off the major parts of the thumb and first
two fingers of his left hand. Only short
stumps remained extending from the knuckle
of his hand. The majority of young pipers
might have abandoned the pipes, but no so
the young John Wilson, who displayed the
perseverance that would be a guiding trait
throughout his life. He went back to the
practice chanter and relearn his fingering.
By 1921 he was winning the major amateur
prizes again.
In 1924, still in his teens,
he began capturing the top prizes. He won
the Marches at Oban that year, and the
following year the Gold Medal at Inverness.
In 1927 he won the Gold Medal at Oban and
the Strathspeys and Reels at Oban and
Inverness.
His life revolved around
piping, and he took on a variety of jobs,
from accounting clerk to male model, leaving
as required to spend the summers playing the
Games circuit. He was a professional piper,
achieving sustained success throughout the
1920s and ’30s against the likes of Robert
Reid, R. U. Brown, Willie Ross, J. B.
Robertson and Malcolm R. MacPherson. It was
a Golden Age of piping, and John Wilson was
one of the great pipers of the age. During
what he called his peak year in 1936, he
received 70 prizes in 72 events, winning
first in 35 of them and second in 24. Two of
these firsts included the Clasp at Inverness
and the Former Winners’ March, Strathspey
and Reel at Oban.
By this time he was
flourishing as a composer, and his tunes
were gaining in popularity. In 1937 he
published his first book of music
containing original compositions not
just by himself, but by John MacColl, G.
S. McLennan, Roderick Campbell, Peter
MacLeod Jr., and Ian C. Cameron. A
second volume would appear in 1957 and a
third in 1967. To this day the three
John Wilson collections rank in stature
alongside those of Willie Ross and
Donald MacLeod.
He volunteered for service in World War
II and was appointed Pipe Major of the
4th Battalion Cameron Highlanders, the
Inverness-shire Territorials.
In June of 1940
his life changed forever when he and
the unit, including General Fortune,
was captured by the German army at
St. Valery, France. He would spend
the next five years in
prisoner-of-war camps, cut off from
friends, family and piping, until
liberated by U.S. forces in April of
1945.
He would not
compete again until 1948, and the
next year his life would bring about
great change again when, on the
prompting of his friend George
Duncan, he decided to immigrate to
Canada.
One of his first
acquaintances was Pipe Major John
Reid, who had brought him to Oshawa,
Ontario, home of the huge General
Motors plants. While P/M Reid didn’t
have a job for him, he did have a
daughter. John was smitten with
Margaret Reid immediately. They
would marry in 1950 and eventually
have two sons.
With work
scarce in Oshawa due to a
temporary plant shutdown, John
settled first in Hamilton,
Ontario, joining the pipe band
of the Argyll & Sutherland
Highlanders under Pipe Major J.
K. Carins. Cairns retired the
next year, and Wilson was named
Pipe Major. After an eventful
trip to Scotland in 1951, John
decided pipe majoring was not
for him and he left the band and
moved with Margaret to Toronto.
He had been competing at the
Games since he arrived,
and shortly after arriving in
Toronto he began offering
Saturday piping classes at Fort
York Armoury. These lessons,
along with private teaching in
his home, would dramatically
change the face of piping in
Ontario over the next 25 years.
Reay MacKay, Billy Gilmour, Bill
Livingstone, Bob Worrall, Gail
Brown, Michael Grey and many
others – all owed much of their
piping success to the rigorous
teaching of John Wilson in
Toronto. His exacting standards
as a teacher and judge raised
the level of technique and
instruments in Ontario to
unparalleled heights. It was
without doubt due to the
influence of John Wilson that
Ontario pipers
earned reputations in Scotland
in the 1970s and 1980s for
impeccable technique,
flawless performances and
strong, steady pipes.
During
these years his health was
an ongoing issue. He
suffered a heart attack in
1955 and in 1963 cancer was
discovered in his left lung
and the lung was removed.
Despite these difficulties
he judged and taught
relentlessly, and even
returned to the Boards at
the Brockville games in 1972
at the age of 66, earning
seconds in the Strathspey
and Reel and the Jig against
the leading Ontario players
of the time.
John
Wilson cut a
larger-than-life figure
through all his days. His
quick wit and unrelenting
determination to say and
stand up for what he thought
did not endear him to all,
but certainly earned him
respect and a reputation for
integrity given to few
others. He died from lung
cancer in Toronto on
November 6, 1979. He left
his body to science and
there was no memorial
service.
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