The Bathgate Band can trace it's origins to the early part of the nineteenth century, but first came to prominence in the early 1840's when they were asked to play for Queen Victoria on her visit to Linlithgow. This appears to be the band's first high profile engagement for which they received the princely sum of one guinea!! From these origins the Band appears to be the oldest musical organisation in West Lothian and Scotland.                                                                                  
The Band continued to flourish with the help of the ever-growing town of Bathgate, receiving support from the local hand and loom weaving industry and also from local mining and steel foundry concerns. The Band even spent a few years in the 1870's in the guise of the local Volunteer Militia Band. In the 1890's the prosperous town council took an interest in the Band, supporting it by public subscription, which prompted a name change to the Bathgate Public Band.
Following the formation of the Scottish Amateur Brass Band Association the Band competed in the inaugural Scottish Championship in 1895 and have participated ever since. Our most successful period in the competition was during the 1930's, when the Band consistently appeared in the first three places with the Clydebank and CWS (Glasgow) Bands.