“With the death of John Wilson last month in Willowdale, Ontario, so passed from the piping scene one of the great characters of this century.”

So wrote Seamus MacNeill in the Piping Times in November, 1979, encapsulating what all who knew John Wilson would most remember most about him.

He was born in Edinburgh in 1906 and began learning the pipes in 1915 from Pipe Major Robert Thomson of the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders at Edinburgh Castle. He progressed quickly and in 1917 was sent for tuition to Roderick Campbell, who won the Gold Medal at Oban in 1908 and was one of the leading composers and teachers of the day. They developed a most productive teacher-pupil relationship and were good friends until Campbell died in 1937.

On the eve of Armistice Day in 1918 he was enjoying the usual playful explorations of a 12-year-old when he found and accidentally ignited the detonator of a stray hand grenade and blew off the major parts of the thumb and first two fingers of his left hand. Only short stumps remained extending from the knuckle of his hand. The majority of young pipers might have abandoned the pipes, but no so the young John Wilson, who displayed the perseverance that would be a guiding trait throughout his life. He went back to the practice chanter and relearn his fingering. By 1921 he was winning the major amateur prizes again.

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John Wilson in 1927, shortly after winning the Gold Medal at the Argyllshire Gathering.


As a 10-year-old with his first set of pipes in 1916, and his left hand still intact.


John Wilson and Margaret Reid were married on September 23, 1950. George Duncan was the Best Man.


Round the games in Ontario in 1950.