Northumbrian Small Pipes Society facts for kids
The Northumbrian Small Pipes Society was a group started in 1893. It was founded by people from the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne. Their main goal was to encourage interest in and playing of Northumbrian smallpipes and their music.
The society only lasted for seven years. Today, it is mostly seen as an early version of the Northumbrian Pipers' Society. Even though it was short-lived, it did some important things. It published the first ever teaching book for the instrument. This book was called Instruction Book for the Northumbrian Small-Pipes (1896) by J. W. Fenwick. The society also held regular meetings and organised yearly competitions.
In 1894, 1896, and 1897, the society published special reports called Transactions. They also shared a report about their annual meeting in 1897. Members paid a yearly fee of five shillings. There were also "Honorary Playing Members." The society's records list the names and addresses of 37 known pipers.
Newspaper articles from April 1900 said the society was doing well. They reported 200 members, with almost half of them being pipers. Officers were chosen for the next year. However, after this, there are no more records of the society's activities. In 1906, when the Clough family played for King Edward VII, a newspaper said the society had helped revive interest. But it also noted that the society had shown "no signs of life" for seven years. This suggests the group was not very active before its last meeting.
Around the same time as the society's last meeting, pipers like Henry Clough and Richard Mowat started their own gatherings. They met at The Black Horse in Monkseaton. This showed that pipers were beginning to organise events on their own. The 1900 meeting was led by Walter Corder, who was the society's secretary. This was the second such meeting, with the first being the previous May. These events were called "annual," but no more newspaper reports appeared until 1906.
Contents
Why was the society formed?
A growing interest in Northumbrian music
The late 1800s in Northumberland was a time of growing interest in local music. People especially loved the music of the Northumbrian smallpipes. In the 1850s, the Society of Antiquaries started collecting old tunes and songs. Their Ancient Melodies Committee continued this work for many years.
In the 1870s, the Society of Antiquaries held yearly piping competitions. These events encouraged pipers and rewarded the best players. In 1882, a book called Northumbrian Minstrelsy was published. It shared some of their research with more people. The second part of this book was all about smallpipe tunes. By 1893, there was a strong desire to create a group just for Northumbrian Smallpipes.
Who were the members?
Important people in the society
The society had 26 committee members. Only one of them, J. W. Fenwick, was an Honorary Playing Member. Many committee members were related. They belonged to the Foster, Spence, Corder, and Watson families. A lot of them lived close to each other in North Shields. This Quaker family were descendants of Robert Foster. He was a close friend of Thomas Bewick, a famous engraver. It's likely Robert heard Thomas's son, Robert Bewick, play the pipes. The family's interest in piping may have started then.
One important member was the artist Joseph Crawhall II (1821–1896). He loved the culture and music of Northumberland. In 1888, he published a book called A Beuk o' Newcassell Sangs. He also put together a tunebook for pipers. It had tunes copied from the William Vickers manuscript and tunes from oral tradition. Some of these tunes were not known from anywhere else. Parts of his collection are now in the FARNE archive.
Joseph Crawhall wrote letters to his friend, the illustrator Charles Keene. Keene was also a Northumbrian piper. Their letters show they both dealt with James Reid. James was the son of Robert Reid, who made pipes. In one letter, Keene mentioned seeing the pipes of Tommy Hair for sale in Reid's shop in 1873.
Another committee member was Charles James Spence. He was a banker and an artist. He was also an active member of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne. He was their Curator of Museums from 1890 to 1905. He owned a very rare set of six-drone pipes made by Reid. A picture of these pipes is at the front of Fenwick's tutor book. It's not known if he was interested in them as a collector or a player. He was not listed as a playing member. This suggests he might not have considered himself a serious piper.
Charles James Spence designed the medal given to first-prize winners in the society's competitions. He also created the artwork for the society's Transactions. The society gave its gold medal to two pipers: Richard Mowat and Henry Clough.
His cousin, Robert Spence Watson, had a strong interest in piping earlier on. He gave the Spence Watson trophy, worth £25, for competitions held by the Society of Antiquaries. Old Tom Clough won this trophy three times, taking it permanently in 1879. Robert's daughter, Mary Spence Watson, also played the pipes. She learned from Richard Mowat. She wrote letters to Old Tom's grandson, Tom Clough. That trophy is now in the Morpeth Chantry Bagpipe Museum.
The society's president was Richard Welford. In 1896, he gave a talk about 'The Waits of Newcastle upon Tyne'. The last of the Waits was John Peacock, a piper. This shows Welford was interested in Northumbrian pipes. After Fenwick died, Welford got Fenwick's collection of music. This collection still exists and has many unusual versions of traditional pipe tunes. Some tunes are linked to specific pipers, like Peacock and Robert Reid.
The society's records include the addresses of players. These pipers lived in a wide area. This area stretched from mid-Durham to western Northumberland. It also included the North Tyne Valley and areas further north like Alnwick. Then it went south to Morpeth, southeast Northumberland, and Tyneside. This area generally matched the borders of Northumberland and eastern County Durham. Almost half of the listed players, seventeen in total, were from the industrial areas of Tyneside and southeast Northumberland. Three lived in North Shields, and six were from mining towns between the rivers Tyne and Wansbeck.
Why did the society not last long?
The exact reasons for the society's short life are not written down. However, the committee had 26 members, but only one was an honorary playing member. Over the society's whole existence, there were only 37 honorary playing members. At any one time, there were never more than 35.
Pipers might have felt that the society was more interested in old history. They might have thought it focused on preserving an instrument that was wrongly seen as dying out. They might not have felt it was truly about the living tradition of how the instrument was played then.
Similar feelings were present when the Northumbrian Pipers' Society was started 30 years later. We know from Tom Clough's letters that he, and maybe his father Henry, were careful and even suspicious at first. Henry was chosen as a vice-president for the new society, but he wasn't very active.
The newer society had much more involvement from pipers themselves. Tom Clough himself was a competition judge for the first three years. He didn't want to be a vice-president, saying it would take too much time. It's more likely that his disagreements with G.V.B. Charlton, the new society's first president, played a big part in his decision. Another piper who was very important in the early days of the Northumbrian Pipers' Society was Richard Mowat. He was its chairman from 1933 until he died. In the same year, Tom Clough was also chosen as a vice-president, just like Billy Pigg had been in 1930.
The newer society, as its name suggests, had much more involvement from pipers. This difference might explain why it survived, while the Northumbrian Small Pipes Society did not.
