William Green (piper)

William was born in 1775 in Morpeth. An elder brother, also William, had been born in 1772, but died young. This seems to have led to some confusion about his birth date. His father Thomas was baptised at Rothbury, and his family came from Thropton nearby. This is the area where the Allan family of pipers lived, and it is likely they would have known each other. William's mother Isabel was the elder sister of William Cant, also a famous early piper.^[1]

Sources for William's early career are fragmentary, and there is little surviving record of any military service. However, his obituary, as well as later accounts, do refer to him having served; there is a record of a William Green in the Northumberland Militia in the 1790s, but it is not certain that this refers to the piper. There is also a record of him serving very briefly in a Volunteer Company in Morpeth from 1799-1800.

He may perhaps be the William Green who married in Tynemouth in 1818, then giving his profession as 'master mariner'; certainly his son William Thomas was born there in 1823. However, after 1806, Green would have had regular duties several times a year in different parts of the county in his role as Piper to the Duchess, which would surely have been incompatible with sea voyages. These duties included regular appearances at Tynemouth, for instance at the proclamation of Tynemouth and North Shields hiring fair. In 1816, a newspaper article ^[2] states that the Duchess's Piper being prevented from playing there by illness, his young nephew Robert Nicholson, then 18, "just the age of the late famed Wm Lamshaw, when he bore away the prize at a musical match at Elsdon Court Baron" , deputised for him. It is clear from this that Green would normally have been expected to play at this event. Again, the following year, at a celebration of Earl Percy's wedding, in North Shields, Nicholson deputised for Green.^[3]

If William Green the piper was indeed still living in Tynemouth, he would have been living near Robert Reid, the pipemaker and piper, who lived and worked in North Shields. In any case, he would have had regular opportunities to visit Reid. There is no definite evidence for Green living elsewhere before his move to Morpeth, where he first appears in the 1841 census, as landlord of The Seven Stars. In 1834, the landlord of that inn was still Robert Richardson, so Green must have taken over the business subsequent to this date.^[4]

The earliest record of him as a piper is of him being appointed Piper to the Duchess in 1806, on the death of Young William Lamshaw. Archived 13 December 2004 at the Wayback Machine. A photograph of him, with his pipes, and wearing the crescent badge of the Percys, was taken later in his life, and is at .

He was succeeded as Ducal Piper by his son William Thomas (Tom) Green, on his retirement in 1849. A photograph of Tom is available at .

Over a period of decades, from 1822 until 1857, there survive newspaper accounts of William Green and Robert Nicholson playing together, for instance at a meeting of the Society for the Improvement of the English Marygold, in 1816.^[5] Nicholson died in Morpeth, on 11 October 1842, "unrivalled as a musician on the Northumberland small pipes, and was one of the Duchess of Northumberland's late pipers" ^[6] and there are subsequent accounts of William and Tom Green, playing together; these include a Burns Supper in North Shields, the Duke's manorial court in Newburn, and the launch of a ship in West Hartlepool.

At some point before the census of 1841, but apparently after 1834, he became an innkeeper; in 1841 he was living at, and running, The Seven Stars in Morpeth, and in 1834 that business was still run by Robert Richardson. As many inns were run by musicians, such as Thomas Hair running The Blue Bell in nearby Bedlington, or Green's uncle William Cant running The Blue Bell at the head of Side in Newcastle, this may have been a natural change of career.