The 75th were raised in 1787 by Robert Abecromby, their first colonel, and were known as Abercromby's Highlanders. They first saw action in India, fighting at Seringapatam and Mysore. During the Napoleonic Wars the 75th were stationed in the Mediterranean. Later, during the colonial period they served in South Africa during the Kaffir War of 1832, and in India during the Sepoy Rebellion. In 1862 they became the 75th (Stirlingshire) Regiment.

In 1881 as part of the Childers Reforms the 75th amalgamated with the 92nd (Gordon Highlanders) Regiment of Foot to become the 1st battalion, the Gordon Highlanders. The 75th were forced painfully into this ill-suited linking, and went so far as commissioning a marble monument to themselves in Malta where they were based at the time. They had spent so long away from Scotland that they were effectively an English unit that had to relearn how to wear kilts.