Our History
St. Andrews Caledonian Pipe Band is Tasmania's oldest Pipe Band and is based Launceston, Australia.
The band was established in 1933 by Bob Mackenzie.
Currently, the band competes in Grade 4B while also enjoying performing and playing music in a family-friendly atmosphere throughout our community, interstate and overseas.
The band wears Makenzie tartan.
Early History
The roots of the St Andrew’s Caledonian Pipe Band stretch back to the mid-nineteenth century when the Scottish gentlemen of Launceston founded the St Andrew’s Society in 1841. Within five years, they had managed to start the tradition of a St Andrew’s Day Ball, with the Examiner suggesting that no such ball had ever “come off in Launceston with greater eclât”, [1] and by 1892, there was also a Caledonian Society. When the two merged on the 23rd of October 1920, so too did their respective pipe bands, thus creating the St Andrew’s Caledonian Pipe Band.
Formation of the Caledonian Band 1913 / 1914
The early years of St Andrew’s included at least two ‘recesses’, the first occurring during World War I “due to its ranks being depleted”[2] and the second around the time of the Great Crash. The band was, nevertheless, a prominent part of Launceston’s social events and a leader in community fundraising, even helping other bands such as St Joseph’s when it was itself in dire need of funds. Indeed, the band was originally dressed in “nearly every tartan known in Scotland” thanks to the generosity of a “well-known whisky firm” before being clad in the tartan of the famous Black Watch Regiment in which Drum-Major George White served during the Great War. It wasn’t until 1935 that band members began wearing a common tartan, McKenzie, chosen for its “serviceable blending of colour”.
McKenzie was also a fine choice given the “enthusiasm and skill” of “its six-foot Pipe-Major” Robert (Bob) McKenzie. He was once the youngest piper in Australia, mastering a miniature set of pipes at age nine, and won ‘Champion of Tasmania’ in four sections of the 1923 Caledonian Carnival. The band was also known for its accompanying “Scottish dancing lassies”, and in 1927 it was claimed that under the tutelage of Miss A.G. Chalmers they had “never been defeated in competitive dancing”.[3]
Christmastide of 1923/24 was a momentous time for the band. In company with notable “mainland artists” such as the baritone Frederic Earp, they began a two-week visit to north-western Tasmania on Boxing Day. In Burnie, “the spacious theatre was packed to the doors”.[4] Two months later, St Andrew’s headed an a impressive benefit concert in City Park and Albert Hall for the widow and six children of Tasman Taylor, the thirty-five-year-old scion of the prominent maritime Taylor family; and two years later it helped the City Band celebrate its jubilee, being “always ready and willing to assist in a good cause”.[5]
The Royal Visits of 1920 and 1927 by the future kings Edward VIII and George VI were, however, undoubtedly the highlight of the early years for St Andrew’s. The band “had the honour of leading the parade in Hobart” for the Prince of Wales (Edward) and it “took a prominent and appropriate part, in view of the Duchess’ -like, from the remnant of a band,”[6] and began its ninety-year stretch of continuous activity, with George White (Chairman and Drum-Major), Malcolm Murray (Pipe-Major), and Bob McKenzie (Custodian) at the helm. Its first major event, however, was the sad duty of playing the ‘Piper’s Lament’ at the graveside of William B. McClymont, former secretary and benefactor.[7]
The band’s inclusion in ANZAC Day commemorations in 1934 excited “considerable interest”, and its “appearance in the Parade of Returned Soldiers to the Cenotaph in Royal Park for the first time was the subject of favourable comment not only by the Returned Soldiers but by the general public”.[8]
The years that followed were dominated by steady growth and continual involvement in charitable works. It was not known to Scotch ancestry” when the Duke and Duchess of York visited Launceston six years later.[9]
After a hiatus at the beginning of the Great Depression, St Andrews Caledonian Pipe Band rose, “phoenix have ever refused a request for help. The ladies’ committee continued to assiduously fundraise and organise social functions such as Mrs McKenzie’s much-appreciated Haggis Supper. The band travelled extensively up and down the Tamar, out to Longford and even Burnie to perform. The Legislative Councillor E.W. Freeland noted that although some people likened the pipes to “squealing cats”, the reception given to the band at the Launceston Show “demonstrated in no uncertain manner that the band was appreciated”.[10]
The Second World War brought new challenges. By May 1941, it had six playing members serving overseas as well as others in military camp at home. The band had purchased £48 (around $4000 in today’s currency) of war bonds and would purchase the same amount again the following year. By 1943, it had lost twenty-two playing members to the armed forces. The band nevertheless answered “all calls for patriotic and charitable assistance” and continued to train new members and practice every Monday night, still drawing a “large gathering”.
In 1942, Acting Secretary Matthew Tyson also enlisted and wrote as he left;
Yet another year of war has passed and the British nation is still involved in a great struggle and still members of Our Band are answering the call to the colours. Up to the present a large number of Bandsmen are engaged in the fighting forces both at home and abroad. Although the Band has lost valuable members the committee are determined to carry on….[11]
[1] The Examiner (Launceston), 2/12/1846, p. 5.
[2] The Examiner, 21/11/1933, p. 6.
[3] The Mercury (Hobart), 25/5/1937, p. 7.
[4] The Circular Head Chronicle, (Stanley), 27/12/1923 p. 2.
[5] The Examiner, 23/11/1926, p. 3.
[6] The Mercury, 25/5/1937, p. 7.
[7] The Mercury, 23/11/1933, p. 7.
[8] The Examiner, 23/4/1934, p.7; SACPB Minutes of General Meeting, 9/5/1934.
[9] The Mercury, 25/5/1937, p. 7; The Examiner, 19/4/1927, p. 6.
[10] The Examiner 31/5/1935, p. 8.
[11] SACPB Annual Reports, 19/5/1941, 21/5/1942, and 26/5/1943.
