The 79th Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders were obliged to dispense with their regimental number in 1881. This was a small sacrifice compared to the proposed amalgamation with the 42nd Black Watch. It was suggested that they become the 42nd’s second battalion which would have meant exchanging their beloved Cameron of Erracht tartan for the government tartan of the Black Watch. This they flatly refused to do and thus they were left alone to be the only line regiment in the Army, from the 26th to the 109th, to avoid amalgamation and retain their identity.
The officers wear dress uniform in parade order apart from the absence of their feather bonnets. It is doubtful that the bonnets were taken to Gibraltar as the regiment was ordered to wear white foreign service helmets for this and their later service in Egypt. For the photo they wear glengarry caps with a regimental badge on the left side. In 1881 there was a change to the dress doublet which removed the rank badges from the collar to the newly adopted twisted gold shoulder cords. One officer, in the middle of the back row appears to wear the old pattern as he has crown badges on his collar.
The rank of sub-lieutenant was changed to second lieutenant by Royal Warrant of 30 Oct 1876, then another Royal Warrant of 25 June 1881 abolished the rank so that second lieutenants were thereafter styled lieutenants. So all officer ranks had gold lace on their doublets. There are two officers in this photo, seated at the front, that have two rows of lace on their cuffs, indicating field rank. The large officer in the centre is John Macdonald Leith who was a brevet lieutenant-colonel on 31 Dec 1878, and substantive lieutenant-colonel on 1 July 1881. He was in command from December 1879 in the absence of Lt-Col Cumming who was on sick leave, and took command officially on 1 July.
The other field officer could be Henry Hungerford St Leger who was promoted to lieutenant-colonel on 1 July 1881. The majors serving in Gibraltar at that time were William McCausland, Orr Boswell Gordon and Norman Guthrie Chalmers. The rest of the officers are either captains or lieutenants. On the other side of Lt-Col Leith is the Surgeon Major, wearing the uniform of the Medical Department. He is not named on the ArmyLists of that period. The field officers wear trews and full shoulder plaids as their rank entitled them, but there are two officers seated on the left and right also in trews and full plaid, one would be the adjutant.
