Henry Clough

Henry Clough (1855-1936), was a player of the Northumbrian pipes, or Northumbrian smallpipes. He was a miner, living in Newsham, in south-eastern Northumberland. He was the father of Tom Clough, 'The Prince of Pipers'. Several previous generations of the family had also been pipers, Henry's father, 'Old Tom' (1830-1885), and grandfather Henry (1789-1842) among them. Since the instrument assumed its modern keyed form at the beginning of the 19th century, the family's playing tradition goes back unbroken to that time. There is a photograph of Henry with his son Tom, playing their pipes, at.^[1]

Music

Some tunes from his music manuscripts can be found on the FARNE archive at,^[2] together with those of his son, and an authoritative book on the family and its music, based on the collected manuscripts, was published by the Northumbrian Pipers' Society as The Clough Family of Newsham.^[3] These sources give considerable insight into the traditional playing technique and style of the instrument. Henry and his son were both fine solo pipers, regularly winning competitions, Henry being one of the Gold Medal winners in the Northumbrian Smallpipes Society's competitions in the 1890s. Henry and Tom's duet playing was also said to be superb - a showpiece was Sir Sidney Smith's March. However Henry's playing, unlike his son's, was never recorded.