The Sutherland Highlanders

In the year 1800, a “ Letter of Service ” was granted to Major General William Wemyss of Wemyss to raise a Highland regiment of infantry on behalf of the ancient family of Sutherland. The establishment of the new corps was fixed at 600 men , and this number was quickly raised ; 460 recruits being obtained from Sutherland, and the remainder from Ross- shire and the adjacent counties. Amongst the recruits were many men who had served in the late “ Sutherland Fencibles, ” of which regiment General Wemyss was formerly Colonel.1 “ One striking peculiarity in the constitution of the 93rd,” writes Mr Keltie, in his history of the regiment, “ consists in its having probably furnished the last instance of the exercise of the clan influence on a large scale in the Highlands. The original levy was completed not by the ordinary modes of recruiting, but by a process of conscription. A census having been made of the disposable population on the extensive estates of the Countess of Sutherland, her agents lost no time in requesting a certain proportion of the able bodied sons of the numerous tenantry to join the ranks of the Sutherland regiment, as a test at once of duty to their chief and their sovereign. The appeal was well responded to ; and though there was a little grumbling among the parents, the young men themselves seem never to have questioned the right thus assumed over their military services by their chief.” The recruits thus obtained were of a decidedly superior class ; many of them being the sons of respectable farmers ; and so implicitly did the authorities trust them , that after enrolling their names they were permitted to return home and follow their ordinary occupations until such time as their presence was required.

• 93rd Sutherland Highlanders, Lieut. Col. Percy Groves, R.G.A, 1895