Tirah Campaign Victoria Cross Recipient. A native of Scotland, he received the award from British Queen Victoria on May 14, 1898 at Netley Hospital in Netley, Hampshire, England for his actions as a piper in the 1st Battalion, The Gordon Highlanders, British Army on October 20, 1897 at Dargai Heights in present-day Pakistan during the Tirah Campaign (1897 to 1898). Born one of eleven children in Turriff, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, his father was a miller. He left school at the age of 13 to work as a farm laborer. When he was 16 year old, he joined the 2nd Battalion, Gordon Highlanders and was sent to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). In 1891 he transferred to the 1st Battalion and served in the North-West Frontier of British India (now Pakistan) and in March 1895 he participated in the Chitral Expedition. In December 1896 he became a piper in the battalion's band and the following year he participated in the Tirah Campaign where he won the Victoria Cross for gallantry at Dargai Heights. Wounded in his feet, he was evacuated to Rawalpindi, Punjab for treatment and sent home to the Netley Hospital in England to recover. Following his Victoria Cross award, he was discharged from the British Army but he continued to performed the bagpipes at music halls in England. He then toured North America for about a year and in 1900 he returned to England and became a farmer. After World War I broke out in July 1914, he rejoined The Gordon Highlanders and served in France for a year, participating in the Battle of Loos, but was sent home in December 1915 and he returned to farming. He died from a heart attack at the age of 70. In addition to the Victoria Cross, he received the Indian Medal (with Defence of Chitral 1895 and Tirah 1897-98 clasps), the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal (1914-20), and the Victory Medal (1914-19). His Victoria Cross citation reads: "During the attack on the Dargai Heights on 20 October 1897, Piper Findlater, after being shot through both feet and unable to stand, sat up, under a heavy fire, playing the Regimental March to encourage the charge of the Gordon Highlanders." He was the focal point of several paintings, including Edward Hale's "Piper Findlater Willing the VC" (1897), Stanley Berkeley's "Charge of the Gordon Highlanders" (1897), Vereker Hamilton's "Piper Findlater at Dargai" (1898), Richard Caton Woodville's "The Storming of Dargai Heights" (1898), and Robert Gibb's "Dargai" (1909).