Edith MacPherson, 1928-2024

Edith MacPherson, the first woman to win significant solo prizes in Scotland, died in Inverness on September 4, 2024, in her ninety-seventh year.

We thought our November 2004 profile of MacPherson summed up her life in piping well, so here it is.

When we received a message from the accomplished piper and astute reader JohnDon MacKenzie of Inverness a few months after he won the piobaireachd competition at the Invergordon Highland Games, we thought it was only the latest correspondence from a good piping friend. Little did we know that MacKenzie would lead us to uncover a detail of piping history that should not be forgotten.

On the Kincraig Challenge Cup MacKenzie received, he saw that the trophy listed was “1947 – Miss Edith MacPherson, Inverness.” JohnDon had seen our “This Date in History” feature allude to Rona MacDonald’s 1966 win at the North Uist games as being the first female winner of a senior solo piping event in Scottish piping history. The name on the cup piqued his curiosity, so he wondered if we would be interested in discovering more about this Edith MacPherson.

We were. We asked around, but no one at first seemed to know of any such piper in that area. So, thanks to the ease of the Internet, we located the Ross-shire Journal‘s Web site, and, through the newspaper’s automated letters-to-the-editor feature, we wrote a message to Journal readers asking if anyone knew of Edith MacPherson.

We received several messages in return, each suggesting that she might now live In Inverness. We called directory assistance and got a phone number. But just before we were going to try the number, a letter arrived in the post from, yes, Edith MacPherson, saying that she had seen our letter to the Ross-shire Journal and that, yes, she was indeed the piper who won the piobaireachd at Invergordon in 1947.

Edith MacPherson’s win at Invergordon was the second time that a female had won the first prize in an adult open piping competition in Scotland. She had won the piobaireachd at the Glenurquhart games on August 31, 1946.

Nearly 20 years would pass before another lady, Rona MacDonald, would win again. A few weeks after her prize at Invergordon, MacPherson would win the piobaireachd at the Dornoch games, receiving the Mrs. Roswell Millar Gold Medal, presented by Andrew Carnegie’s daughter at Skibo Castle.

MacPherson, a pupil of the great John MacDonald of Inverness, competed for only a few years but to excellent success. As an 18-year-old, she went up against formidable competitors in the post-war years, including such piping legends as Donald MacLeod, John A. MacLellan, John MacFadyen, Donald MacGillivray, Donald MacLean, and even the legendary John Wilson, just before he immigrated to Canada. In fact, Invergordon was only one of many of her prizes. She also took piobaireachd and light music events at Glenurquhart, Dornoch, Newtonmore, and was twice runner-up in the Dunvegan Medal at Portree, Skye.

Although she wanted to, MacPherson wasn’t allowed to compete at Braemar, the Argyllshire Gathering, or the Northern Meeting due to restrictions against females entering. It wasn’t until 1975 when the Sex Discrimination Act was passed in the United Kingdom that these events were forced to accept female competitors. The Sunday Mail newspaper wrote about Edith MacPherson in 1947 that, “Her greatest regret is that she won’t be allowed to pit her piping skill against the world’s finest pipers who will compete at the Northern Meeting next week in Inverness. Women are debarred from competing. Miss MacPherson cannot understand why.”

MacPherson started piping when she was 12 years old, and she won her first competition at age 14 at the Glasgow Mod. “There were no other lady competitors in the 1940s. I was the only one,” she says, looking back on her short-lived competition days when she would also compete in the Highland dancing events.

At age 16, she started receiving tuition from the great John MacDonald at his home on Percival Road in Inverness. Now nearly 80, Edith MacPherson is congenial and sharp-witted, with a crystal-clear memory of her years as a young competitive piper.

MacPherson says, “John MacDonald was in his nineties when I went to him. I was a student at Inverness Academy. I went to him about twice a week for a couple of years.”

MacDonald sent her piobaireachd playing to a different level as Edith MacPherson went from being a piper in the local and junior competitions to competing in the senior events against the greats of the day. Did her male contemporaries resent a female playing against and often beating them?

“They were very good,” she says. “If they resented it, they never said anything. My teacher said that they didn’t like to see me at the games, but I don’t know if that was true or not.”

MacPherson’s accomplishments were noticed by the Scottish media. The Sunday Mail’s “Woman Reporter” wrote, “Some girls knit, some girls sew – but 20-year-old Edith MacPherson of Inverness prefers to play her bagpipes.”

Despite her success on the piping boards, MacPherson’s studies at the Royal Academy of Music and her other focus on Highland dancing took her away from competitive piping. She went on to become an accomplished pianist and a prize-winning Highland dancer. Edith MacPherson has served on the adjudication board of the Scottish Organization Board of Highland Dancing (SOBHD) and achieved another first for women when 25 years ago she became the first female dancing judge at the Braemar Gathering, an event that she has judged every year since.

“Looking back on the piping now, it seems like it was another life,” says a wistful MacPherson. She remembers the piping personalities of the day well. “Colonel Jock MacDonald, Brown and Nicol of Balmoral, Seton Gordon – they’ve all gone, these people who I used to know, and I was very proud to have known them. It was great privilege.”

Edith MacPherson was a true pioneer who made a lasting mark on piping history well beyond the fact that her name is engraved on the Kincraig Cup for piobaireachd at Invergordon.

We extend our sympathies to Edith MacPherson’s surviving family and friends at this time.