Richard Mowat

Richard Mowat or Mowatt (1865–1936) was a renowned and award-winning player of the Northumbrian smallpipes.^[1]

Biography

A miner, born in Backworth in 1865, Mowat won the Northumbrian Smallpipes Society's piping competitions for three successive years 1894-6, and was subsequently barred from competitions. That society was short-lived, between 1893 and about 1899. In this period it awarded two pipers its Gold Medal; one was Mowat, and the other was Henry Clough.^[2] There are several photographs of him in the Cocks Collection; these can be viewed at.^{[3][4][5][6][7]}

Mowat, like Tom Clough, had studied the pipes with Thomas Todd, but he had a very different style from the Cloughs' close-fingered playing. He had, contrastingly, an unusual fingering style, occasionally lifting several fingers at a time, and sometimes his entire right hand, particularly on long notes in slow airs, such as Roslin Castle. He was evidently not penalised in competitions for this, as he would be today. Despite their differing personal piping styles, he and the Cloughs often played together. Billy Pigg learned from Mowat as well as from the Cloughs.

Mowat was chairman of the Northumbrian Pipers' Society from 1933 until his death in 1936. The Society's tunebook was first published at this time; the elaborate 9-strain variation set on Felton Lonnen in that book, distinct from both the Peacock and Clough versions, is taken from his own playing.^[8] He was also regarded by his contemporaries as an expert reedmaker.^[9]

Footnotes