Chiff and Fipple Forums

Oops, my mistake. With respect to the Taylor/Anderson set at the National Museum, I did get a quick reply to my Inquiry in April 2020.

Dr. Jennifer Goff of the Museum wrote right back. She said the set has yet to be photographed, and sent this description, with registration number

"DF:1972.7.1-5. Set of Uilleann pipes by Taylor. Silver and ivory mounts. Green velvet bag with gold trimming and red and gold embroidered border. Leather straps."

Nick

I have added three more entries to my page on pipemakers in North America.

John Scorgie (c. 1773-1822) New York City, earliest known uilleann pipemaker in America
James Joseph Smith (1855-1935) Belleville, New Jersey
Daniel Sullivan (c. 1851-1912) Boston. Well-known fiddle player

Irish or Uilleann Bagpipe Makers, North America, Before 1950

and the home page: Lives of the Pipers

Nick Whitmer
Ithaca NY
USA

I have added two more entries to my page on pipemakers in North America.

Taylor brothers active in Philadelphia circa 1874-1891, pipemakers from another planet
Edward "Ned" White (circa 1809-1877) Boston, "The Dandy Piper"

These are the last of the pipemaker entries, and probably the last of the piper biographies on the Lives of the Pipers Website. I will continue to make corrections, add information as necessary.

Irish or Uilleann Bagpipe Makers, North America, Before 1950

and the home page: Lives of the Pipers

Nick Whitmer
Ithaca NY
USA

Such a great resource Nick--well done again

Hey Nick, why did it take you so long to add the Taylor Bros of Phili? Would have thought that would have headed your initial list. Hope that you are keeping well.

Neil

Neil,

I wanted to do most of my research & get a good sense of their times and of other makers before I wrote about the Taylor bros.

Nick

Some suggestion but no solid proof that White was active as maker in Ireland. Emigrated to Boston in 1848, age about forty one, identified himself as "Musical Instrument Maker" at least by 1850. Francis O'Neill describes White as player, reedmaker, repairer and maker of pipes, his drones well thought of. His pipes are said to have "style characteristics" of pipemakers Maurice Coyne and Michael Egan.

For Ned White you seem to rely heavily on what Robert van Dijk wrote. The set he has, and attributed to White, was reportedly found under the floorboards of a house in Loughrea. It really was a bag of sticks before it was put together and done up. The bits appeared to have been made by a number of different makers, perhaps even as many as three or four. I was present when Geoff Wooff gave his opinion, casually, on some of the 'style characteristics' found in different parts of that set, which made it into Robert's article in the Piobaire. I'd be very reluctant to attribute all of those to White's work, especially as known, or attributed, sets by White made in the US are, visually, very different in character. I have photos of that set, although not currently digitised.

Mr. G,

Thanks for your comments and I'll add them to my file on Ned White.

I found very little info about the pipes White made. Main sources are van Dijk's articles in An Píobaire and Mark Walstrom's articles in Pipers' Review and Seán Reid Society Journal. I have seen very few photos. You took the one that accompanies van Dijk's first An Píobaire article but the reproduction quality is not good. I'll bet your original is excellent.

It would be lovely to have an inventory of all the existing pipe parts which are stamped "White," with photos. Then perhaps one might have a sense of his pipemaking style. I doubt this will happen in my lifetime.

Regards,

Nick

I have seen (supposedly) White sets discussed and seen one or two pics of those. They were very much Taylor influenced and very different from Rob's. I have located the negatives and I am about to do a scan to see what they are like. I used an unusual film that had extremely high resolution but I hadn't the development fine-tuned at the time. I have shots of the set being played, by Mick O'Brien, among others. In fact, come to think of it, one of them is on the inside cover of Mick's 'May Morning Dew', wrongly attributed to Rob (we were both snapping away so easy mistake to make). I know I have a print of myself playing it but I doubt that is very useful, if I can find it at all. I'll add images in a bit.

Here's two quick scans. I can probably get a bit better results out of the first one. The negs are high enough res alright (2 1/4 square negs using a Rolleiflex, Kodak Technical Pan film exposed at 25 ISO, if memory serves). Both from 1992, at the Wooff's of Cloghanmore.



And here's Rob playing it:



He had Hubert Kwisthout put it together and make some new parts and reeds for it.

It's missing quite a few keys on the chanter! Lovely photos anyway, Peter.

Mr. G,

Thanks for posting the photos of van Dijk and his set. Interesting and helpful.

The only other photo of supposed White parts I have seen is of a couple regulators. As I wrote in my entry on White:
Another blackwood set has regulators with the original keys thrown away, the pin blocks sawed off, and Taylor-ish style keys added; this insult was probably done over 100 years ago.

A different "style characteristic" indeed!

Nick