A digital photograph of “H” Company of the 48th Highlanders of Canada enjoying the annual mess dinner with H Company of the Queen’s Own Rifles.

It appears that the gentleman in the front row, second from the left, is Sergeant Major Alfred G. Robertson. That would explain the 48th Highlanders at a Queen’s Own Rifles Mess dinner as Colour-Sergeant Robertson came to the 48th Highlanders as the first Regimental Sergeant Major, having served with the 2nd Battalion Queen’s Own Rifles. He served with E Company of the QOR Regiment during the Northwest Rebellion, 1885.

Unconfirmed, but appears to be at the Rossin House Hotel. Ironical a few years earlier was the initial meeting place and room used to create the Royal Canadian Military Institute, which is now located at 426 University Avenue. The Royal Canadian Military Institute has its origins on January 30, 1890, in a small meeting of Militia Officers in Rossin House. The meeting took place at the behest of Lieutenant-Colonel William Otter, Deputy Adjutant General for Military District No. 2. LCol Otter understood that the Militia had to be transformed if it was to serve as the front-line defence for Canada. Rather than annual drills and band concerts, the Militia had to know about war, tactics, strategy, and the changes that would soon make a modern battlefield unrecognizable to soldiers shaped by the images of Waterloo and the Crimea. Fifty Militia officers from Otter’s garrison attended this meeting, with every unit represented.