Uniform Identification/Date Cameron Highlanders?

[Daniels-mum]

Could anyone please help identify the uniform below?  The photo is of my husbands great-grandfather, Alfred Wheeler 1858-1899, in what we think is his Cameron Highlanders uniform taken in the 1880's. We do have his medals somewhere but my m-i-l (his grandaughter) has currently mislayed them!  What is confusing us is that he has an Afghan war medal (but no details engraved on it) but the Cameron Highlanders weren't involved to my knowledge. Could he have been seconded to another regiment involved in the war?  Unfortunately we know little about him. We believe he used the name William Campbell when he was in the Cameron Highlanders (apparently there was a fall out with his father and he wanted to escape his family) and he could also have used the name William Wheeler. On his marriage cert and burial records he's called Alfred Wheeler, so we hope that was his real name!

[Daniels-mum]

Here's the only other photo we have of him, with his regiment. He's on the far left.

[neil1821]

Very nice photo that first one!
Yes, I'd agree with Cameron Highlanders.
Medals - Afghan is perfectly possible for the first (can't see enough to confirm from the pic though). The other two are Queens Egypt Medal and Khedive's Star.
1880s seems reasonable therefore.

So he was a piper?

Could he have been seconded to another regiment involved in the war? 

More likely I would say is that he was a member of another regiment and transferred to the Camerons at a later date.

We do have his medals somewhere but my m-i-l (his grandaughter) has currently mislayed them!  What is confusing us is that he has an Afghan war medal (but no details engraved on it) but the Cameron Highlanders weren't involved to my knowledge.

Find those medals and all will be revealed. I'd be surprised if the Afghan medal had no details on it though. It should do.

[Daniels-mum]

Thanks Neil. That's a good suggestion about him being in a different regiment and transferring to the Camerons later.  My husband has seen the medals (in fact his mum gave them to him, but then decided to keep them "so they didn't get lost" but has hidden them so well she can't find them), and he says the Afghan medal has been filed down round the edge where the name would have been. He's been told that it was common for soldiers to pawn their medals and then when they had some money, to buy another one back. But then they'd have to have the name, if one was still on there, removed. I don't know how true this is, but it would explain things. As he's wearing the medal in the company of other soldiers he must definitely have been entitled to wear it. Maybe when he came back from the Afghan war he left the army, pawned his medals, but then when he joined up again he had to get some replacements. By the way it seems he was a piper though it wasn't exactly in his blood!  We believe he was born in Enfield, but after the fall out with his father he must have decided to go as far away as possible and ended up in Scotland!  We know he didn't have a lot of money - he was buried in a pauper's grave in Abney Park cemetery, London (he died of complications after an operation on his ankle), so the pawning the medals theory could well be true.  Thanks also for identifying the other 2 medals.

[Garen]

I just had a look in Richard Crawford's 'Pipers of the Highland regiments 1854-1902' and there's no sign of a Wheeler and the two William Campbells listed don't fit. Interested by the Afghan medal I also checked the 72nd (where my ggg-uncle was a piper, incidentally), 78th and 92nd's medal rolls for that conflict - again no Wheeler and no Campbells that fit.

In the photo with the other soldiers, am I right in saying he is only wearing two medals - they look like the Egypt ones (Egypt came after Afghanistan). As you say, he was born in Enfield, so it would be worth looking in the roll further than the Scots regiments for a Wheeler.

Best - Garen

[Daniels-mum]

Thanks for your reply Garen. Have just had a chat with my husband, and our theory is, as you suggest, he must have served in Afghanistan with a non-Scots regiment and probably under a different name too. So we may never know. It might also explain why the name was filed off his medal.

Many thanks.

Helen

[Pete Keane]

The first photo was taken post-1887.

Is there an address on the back - if its the Galashiels one its even later (mid-1890's)

Pete

[C-1-8]

Good Evening,

May I add to your dilemma of trying to identify Piper Wheeler of the Cameron Highlanders?

As others have found, he does not show on the Cameron rolls and considering his "Afghan Medal" if legitimate, nor does he show on the 72nd, 78th or 92nd rolls of any rank.  Yet it's hard to believe that he would appear in uniform wearing a campaign medal to which he was not entitled.

I have a group photograph of the Cameron Pipers taken at Devonport in 1887, and included in the photo is a Piper Duncan Campbell that strongly resembles your Piper Wheeler in your group photo.  Only because you have suggested a "Campbell" alias, I mention this one more possibility of the elusive Piper Wheeler !

I wish I could've been more helpful, but I'm at a loss too.

Good luck,

Dick Crawford

[C-1-8]

P.S.  The Piper at the other (right side) end of your photograph, is James McQueen, a native of Stirling and affectionally known in the Regiment as "Jamie."

C-1-8