One hundred and forty-five female pipers and drummers gathered in Melbourne's City Square on Sunday to set a world record for the largest all-female bagpipe performance, a milestone that also marked a century since one of the most remarkable and overlooked chapters in Australian musical history.
The performers played Scotland the Brave and Waltzing Matilda before an audience in the city centre, with the achievement formally recognised by the Australian Book of Records as the biggest ladies' pipe band performance ever staged. The event followed the annual Tartan Day Parade through Melbourne's CBD.
A Record Born From Rock and Roll
Organiser Chris Bouwmeester said the world record attempt drew direct inspiration from a landmark performance held at Federation Square in November last year, when 374 pipers took to the pipes to perform AC/DC's It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock and Roll). That earlier event sparked the idea of staging a dedicated female equivalent — and Sunday's gathering delivered.
Among those who played in City Square was Helen Dilks , a member of the Golden City Pipe Band in Bendigo, who has been with the band for more than six decades. Back in 1963, a 12-year-old Dilks and her sister Ruth made history of their own when their father nervously approached the band about letting his daughters join — at a time when mixed-gender bands were virtually unheard of.
"In those days, there were generally no mixed bands," Dilks said. The sisters became the first girls to join Golden City, and the rest, as they say, is history — history Dilks is still very much part of.
One of the youngest participants on Sunday was Scarlett Cai, 13 , who plays with the Haileybury Pipes and Drums band. Like Dilks, she began playing bagpipes at age nine. "It's something special to be part of," she said of the record.
Centenary of the Australian Ladies Pipe Band's Epic World Tour
Sunday's record attempt carried additional significance: it marked 100 years since the Australian Ladies Pipe Band embarked on a self-funded, two-year world tour spanning Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and New Zealand — a journey that ran from 1925 to 1927.
Led by Gallipoli veteran Drum Major William Darwin, every member of the band had lost a loved one in World War I. The tour was conceived as both a tribute and a statement, at a time when, as Dilks noted, "people seemed to think that females shouldn't play the bagpipes."
The road was not without hardship. Just before the band departed Australia, 19-year-old piper Marjory Cook died in a fall . Upon arrival in New Zealand, seven underage members were deported back to Australia because no parental consent documents had been provided. Research by a National Archives of Australia researcher also revealed that even before departure, the father of two prospective members had written to the prime minister's department warning that the trip was "a risky undertaking, both financially and morally."
Despite these obstacles, the band's achievements abroad were extraordinary. More than 40,000 people greeted the women in Glasgow. In the Scottish Highlands village of Braemar, they performed for King George V and Queen Mary . When they finally returned to Melbourne in February 1927, they performed on radio station 3LO and at the Tivoli Theatre before touring nationally.
Six years after the tour concluded, the band's pipe major, Dolly McPherson , married Drum Major Darwin.
A Living Tradition
To honour the centenary, Sunday's performers also played Australian Ladies , a piece composed 100 years ago by Scotsman William Fergusson specifically to pay tribute to the touring band.
Bouwmeester described the original self-funded world tour as groundbreaking for its era, and the spirit of that assessment was clearly alive in City Square on Sunday — where a 13-year-old and a woman who has played for more than 60 years stood side by side, drones humming, making history together.
