3-034-569 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Presentation of Colours to the 93rd (Sutherland) Highlanders in the Queen's Park, Edinburgh, 1871. '...the old colours...old pieces of silk, rent and ragged with bullet holes and soiled and faded by the suns and storms of the tropics, were borne round the regiment at a solemn slow march, the band playing "Auld Lang Syne."...the new colours [were] cased and supported on a pyramid of drums; and the Duchess of Sutherland took up her position behind this structure, having on each side the officiating chaplains, the Rev. Messrs. Miller and Drennan...Short and appropriate prayers having been read by the chaplains - Mr. Miller's prayer concluding with the invocation of a blessing on the new colours - the two senior Ensigns, Messrs. Hannay and Cunliffe, advanced, and, dropping on one knee, received from the Duchess the colours...the Duchess...[addressed the] men of the Sutherland Highlanders..."I feel it a great honour and pleasure to be here today to present you with new colours...They will accompany the regiment in the same glorious path of honour and duty as those you have carried and looked up to for so many years...You have ever borne yourselves nobly as part of the glorious Highland Brigade, of which every Highlander must be proud".' From "Illustrated London News", 1871.