SUCCESSION LIST OF COLONELS AND LIEUTENANT-COLONELS OF THE 79TH, THE QUEEN’S OWN CAMERON HIGHLANDERS.
COLONELS.
| Names. | Date of Appointment. | Remarks. | ||
| Major Alan Cameron | August | 17, | 1793 | Died Lieut.-General, March 9, 1828. |
| Lieut.-General R. C. Ferguson, G.C.B. | March | 24, | 1828 | Died, April 10, 1841. |
| Major-General the Hon. J. Ramsay | April | 27, | 1841 | Died, June 28, 1842. |
| Lt.-General Sir James Macdonell, K.C.B. | July | 14, | 1842 | To 71st Foot, February 8, 1849. |
| Major-General James Hay, C.B. | February | 8, | 1849 | Died, February 25, 1854. |
| Lieut.-General W. H. Sewell, C.B. | March | 24, | 1854 | Died, 1862. |
| Hugh Arbuthnot, C.B. | March | 14, | 1862 | Vice Sewell, deceased. |
| J. F. Glencairn Campbell | July | 12, | 1868 | Vice Arbuthnot, deceased. |
| Henry Cooper, C.B. | August | 21, | 1870 | Vice Campbell, deceased. |
| LIEUTENANT-COLONELS. | ||||
| Bat. | ||||
| 1. Alan Cameron, Major-Com | Lt.‑Col. Feb. | 19, | 1794 | Major-General, July 25, 1810. |
| 1. The Hon. A. C. Johnstone | May | 2, | 1794 | Promoted to colonel of a regiment, Jan. 26, 1797. |
| 1. William Ashton | September | 18, | 1794 | Died, September 1796. |
| 1. Patrick Macdowall | November | 1, | 1796 | Died of wounds, August 1801. |
| 1. William Eden | August | 15, | 1798 | To 84th Foot, December 11, 1806. |
| 1. Archibald Maclean | September | 3, | 1801 | Retired, May 28, 1807. |
| 2. Philip Cameron | April | 19, | 1804 | To 1st Battalion, December 11, 1806. |
| 2. John Murray | December | 11, | 1806 | To 1st Battalion, May 28, 1807. |
| 1. Philip Cameron | December | 11, | 1806 | From 2nd Battalion. Died of wounds, May 13, 1811. |
| 1. John Murray | May | 28, | 1807 | To Malta Regiment, February 23, 1808. |
| 2. Robert Fulton | May | 28, | 1807 | To 1st Battalion, May 13, 1811. |
| 1. Robert Fulton | May | 13, | 1811 | Retired, December 3, 1812. |
| 2. Wm. M. Harvey | May | 30, | 1811 | To 1st Battalion, December 3, 1812. |
| 1. Wm. M. Harvey | December | 3, | 1812 | Died at sea, June 10, 1813. |
| 2. Neil Douglas | December | 3, | 1812 | To 1st Battalion, February 20, 1813. |
| 1. Neil Douglas | February | 20, | 1813 | To Half-pay, August 16, 1833. |
| 2. Nathaniel Cameron | June | 24, | 1813 | Reduced with 2nd Battalion, Dec 25, 1815. |
| Only one Battalion in Regiment. | ||||
| 1. Duncan Macdougal | September | 6, | 1833 | Retired, March 13, 1835. |
| 1. Robert Ferguson | March | 13, | 1835 | Retired, June 8, 1841. |
| 1. Andrew Brown | June | 8, | 1841 | To 1st Battalion Royals, October 29, 1841. |
| 1. John Carter, K.H. | October | 29, | 1841 | Retired June 14, 1842. |
| 1. The Hon. Lauderdale Maule | June | 14, | 1842 | To Half-pay unattached, December 24, 1852. |
| 1. Edmund James Elliot | December | 24, | 1852 | Died, August 12, 1854. |
| 1. John Douglas, K.C.B. | August | 13, | 1854 | — |
| 1. R. C. H. Taylor, C.B. | December | 12, | 1854 | To Depôt Battalion, October 1, 1856. |
| 1. R. C. H. Taylor, C.B. | August | 1, | 1857 | — |
| 1. T. B. Butt | April | 15, | 1859 | Chief Inspector of Musketry, Bengal, 1860. Exchanged to 86th Regiment, Sept. 13, 1864. |
| 1. W. C. Hodgson | July | 10, | 1860 | Died at Parkhurst, Isle of Wight, March 1, 1872. |
| 1. R. M. Best | September | 13, | 1864 | Brigadier-General, India, May 24, 1870. Exchanged from 86th Regiment, Sept. 13, 1864. |
| 1. K. R. Maitland | March | 2, | 1872 | To Half-pay, October 19, 1872. |
| 1. G. M. Miller | October | 19, | 1872 | — |
FOOTNOTES:
[509] No portrait of this indomitable Colonel exists, or it should have been given as a steel engraving.
[510] Captain Robert Jameson’s Historical Record of the 79th. To this record, as well as to the original manuscript record of the regiment, we are indebted for many of the following details.
[511] “At this interview, Colonel Cameron plainly told the Duke, ‘to draft the 79th is more than you or your Royal father dare do.’ The Duke then said, ‘The King my father will certainly send the regiment to the West Indies.’ Colonel Cameron, losing temper, replied, ‘You may tell the King your father from me, that he may send us to h—l if he likes, and I’ll go at the head of them, but he daurna draft us,’—a line of argument which, it is unnecessary to add, proved to the Royal Duke perfectly irresistible.”—Jameson’s Historical Record.
[512] “In 1809, the 79th accomplished what no other regiment did. In January of that year they were in Spain at the Battle of Corunna, and returned to England in February, when 700 men and several officers suffered from a dangerous typhus fever, yet not a man died. In July they embarked 1002 bayonets for Walcheren, were engaged during the whole siege of Flushing in the trenches, yet had not a man wounded, and, whilst there, lost only one individual in fever—Paymaster Baldock, the least expected of any one. During the three months after their return to England, only ten men died, and in December of that same year again, embarked for the peninsula. 1032 strong.”—Note by Dr A. Anderson, Regimental surgeon, p. 44 of H. S. Smith’s List of the Officers of the 79th.
[513] “This gallant officer commanded the picket of the 79th, and could not be induced to withdraw. He was last seen by Captain (afterwards the late Lieut.-General Sir Neil) Douglas, fighting hand to hand with several French soldiers, to whom he refused to deliver up his sword. His body was found pierced with seven bayonet wounds.”—Jameson’s Records, p. 24.