Miscellaneous Waits

Snippets of history concerning various Waits

Editor’s note: Much of the material previously classified under this heading was re-organised during May 2011. Please see the history section index. [AG 23-May-2011].

Early Waits

“By that was the day don: dymmed the skyes,Merked montayns and mores aboute,Foules fallen to fote and here fethres rysten,The nyght-wacche to the walle and waytes to blowe.”
Siege of Jerusalem. Anon., circa 1390-1400, edited by Michael Livingston, Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 2004.

“When the table was y-drawe, Theo Wayte gan a pipe blawe”.
Kyng Alysaunder, 14th cent.

Bellingham

Jock Milburn was the Piper of Bellingham in 1775. Source: McCandless

Crowland (Lincolnshire)

Music and Society in Early Modern England, C. Marsh (2010)

n.b. Crowland did not have waits, but this quote is quite delicious! (Alan Radford)

“In 1635 Lieutenant Hammond spoke most rudely of the fenland town of Crowland, where the local drink reputedly put the inhabitants ‘into a drowsy and dead sleep, which they hold very convenient and necessary to avoid the divellish stinging of their humming Gnatts, which is all the Towne Musicke they have’.”

Dunstable

From “A Journey to Edinborough and the North of Scotland”, Mrs. C R Cotton, 1831
“We arrived at Dunstable in Bedfordshire about two in the afternoon, and sett up at the Redd Lyon; we din’d here and were entertained by the Town Musick.”

Galashiels

Donald MacLean was the Piper of Galashiels before 1750.Source: McCandless

North East Waits – Names

Miscellaneous Waits listed in  Ros Southey’s “Music Making in North-East England During the Eighteenth Century” (2006)

NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE
Avison, Richard, 1702? – 1721
Blenkinsop, Robert, 1705 – 1725
Cooper, Walter, 1755 – 1765
Cook, William, d. 1713
Franks, ?, ? – 1739
Gale, John, d. 1765
Gelson, Cornforth, 1747 – 1751
Grey, William, 1788 – ?
Howgill, Thomas, d. 1755
Jubb, John, 1705 – 1712
Jubb, William, d. 1742
Kell, Henry, 1702
McFarlane, William, d. 1788
Martin, John, 1717 – 1720
Martin, Robert, 1700? – 1740
Martin, William, d. 1734?
Newby, Richard, 1763 – ?
Orrick, Bartholomew, 1783 – 1786
Robson, Robert, d. 1746
Ross, Thomas snr., 1785 – 1786
Ross, Thomas jr., 1785 – 1986
Shadforth, ?, circa 1770
Sinclair, William, 1742 – 1783
Strolger, Solomon, 1725 – ?
Tait, Henry, 1776
Walker, James, 1772 – 1783
Wightman, John, 1739 – 1746
Wilkinson, Joseph, 1730 – 1731
Wright, William, 1786 – 1793
Wrightman, William, 1739

DURHAM
Blenkinsop, Peter, d. 1778
Bone, Peter, 1788 – ?
Burlingson, William, 1778
Smith, William, d. 1794
Taylor, Abraham, circa 1715
Young, Philip, d. 1788

HEXHAM
Fairweather, John, 1788
Hill, Robert, 1757
Hill, William, 1724

BERWICK ON TWEED
McGill, David, ?
Oswald, John, 1735 – ?
Tate, Henry, d. 1784

North Shields Waits

Waits are discussed and the following waits are mentioned in: Roz Southey ‘Music-making in North-East England during the eighteenth century’ (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), as well as many other local musicians, fiddlers, pipers etc (some of whom may have been waits)

NORTH SHIELDS
Allan, James fl. 1770s (the well-known piper)

Plymouth

Plymouth Borough courts etc., First Folio
ref. 1/359/53 – date: 17cent
Petition of the waytes of the borough of Plymouth to the Mayor, Aldermenand Magistrates regarding the payment of waytes.

Reading

READING WAITS (moonlighting at Oxford) in 1607 – “Christmas: its Origins and Associations”, W. F Dawson, 1902
“At this time, as on all other Holy-dayes, the Princes allowed Musitions (which were sent for from Readinge, because our owne Town Musick had given us the slipp, as they use to doe at that time when we had most need of them) played all dinner time, and allso at supper. The Prince as ofte as hee satt in the Hall was attended on by a Commoner and Scholler of the Colledge in tafaty sarcenett.

Skipton

From “Shakespeare And Music: Arden Critical Companions” edited by David Lindley (2005)

The Skipton Waits were hired for no less than twelve weeks by Francis Clifford, 4th Earl of Cumberland, to celebrate the visit and wedding of Richard Boyle, 2nd Viscount Dungarvan, to his daughter Lady Elizabeth Clifford in 1635. The wedding was at Skipton Parish Church, right next to the castle.

[If only we could all get residencies like that – Alan Radford, 7 November 2012.]