PREVIEW: JEWELLERY 14 MARCH

Three brooches with direct regal connections come to auction in this sale, each linked to the Royal Family’s enduring love of the bagpipes.

The foremost of these is a brooch/pendant with ear pendants presented in 1879 by HRH Princess Alexandra, Princess of Wales, and inscribed ‘From the Princess of Wales to Jeannie MacLean on her marriage 12th April 1879’.

Jeannie MacLean was born in Aberfeldy, Perthshire, Scotland in 1848 and married Donald Mackay (1845-1893), son of Donald Mackay (1794-1850), from a family of distinguished Scottish bagpipers. His father Donald was piper to HRH The Duke of Sussex for 25 years and Donald’s uncle Angus Mackay (1813-1859) was the first Piper to the Sovereign (Queen Victoria) from 1843-1854, a role established in 1843 by the Queen and Prince Albert, and a position which continues to this day.

A talented piper, Donald following in the family tradition. At 18 he won the champion gold medal of the Highland Society of London, being then piper to Ballindalloch, Inverness. For 8 years he held the appointment of piper to Sir George MacPherson Grant, and in 1873 succeeded to the position of the Prince of Wales’s piper.

In 1879, Jeannie MacLeod became Donald’s second wife, his first wife Elizabeth having died in 1876, leaving two daughters. Jeannie and Donald married in Westminster, and a further daughter, Catherine Jessie, was born in March 1880. The couple went on to have three further children.

In 1895, Donald died of blood poisoning from a foot injury. He had completed 20 years of service to the Prince of Wales.

Donald’s obituary in the London paper Lloyd’s Weekly on 7 January 1893 read: ‘Funeral of the Prince of Wales’s piper: The Prince of Wales has sustained a great loss in Donald Mackay, his piper. Donald Mackay was considered the best piper in Great Britain, and frequently played before the Queen…. Beautiful wreaths were sent by the Prince and Princess of Wales, by whom Mackay’s loss is much regretted. The majority of the (Royal) household attended from Marlborough House, and both the Prince and Princess of Wales were represented.’


Jeannie Mackay was left a widow at the age of 45 with four children to support, plus her two stepdaughters from Donald’s first marriage. 

A report in the South Wales Daily News, Cardiff, on 1 January 1895, refers to Jeannie: ‘Prince’s Piper. …Mackay was a gallant piper and died through blood poisoning set up by a wound on his foot. He has been much regretted by the Prince and his family, and the piper’s widow is now a pensioner and well taken care of on the Sandringham estate’.

The census records of 1901 and 1911 show that Jeannie was in fact living at York Cottage at Sandringham and was employed as housekeeper. York Cottage was a large property in the grounds of Sandringham, used by George Duke of York, later George V, the eldest son of the Prince of Wales. In 1893, York Cottage had been given by the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII, as a wedding gift to his son who lived there with his wife, the future Queen Mary, after their marriage in 1893. Five of their six children were born there including the future King George VI.

Jeannie Mackay continued working in royal service at York Cottage through the later years of Queen Victoria’s reign, throughout Edward VII’s reign, (1901-1911), and into the reign of George V. In September 1914, she was awarded the Royal Household Long and Faithful Service Medal, G.V.R. Jeannie Mackay died in 1925, aged 78.

The estimate for the wedding gift set is £1,500-2,000.

In addition, Jeannie Mackay’s descendants have consigned her gold and enamel Prince of Wales’s feathers brooch, the heraldic badge of three ostrich plumes encircled by a royal coronet, applied to a blue enamelled oval plaque, between twin scroll shoulders, contained in a leather Collingwood & Co. case.

The case lid bears the gilt Prince of Wales’s feathers, accompanied by a handwritten pencil note reading ‘Prince of Wales to Granny Mackay’. The estimate is £300-500.

Completing the consignment is an early 20th century Royal Cypher brooch for King George V and Queen Mary, the pale blue enamelled initials within intersecting white enamelled circlets, with central pearl highlight, beneath red enamelled crown surmount. Again, presented in a fitted case, the silk, the estimate is £500-£700.

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