Box and Fiddle
Year 19 No 07
April 1996
James Hill – The Hornpipe King
by Dr Kevin McCann
Whenever a group of traditional musicians get together for a session and play hornpipes it is a rare occasion indeed that one or more of James Hill’s compositions are not played. A few of the tunes which come to mind would be ‘The High Level Bridge’, ‘The Low Level Bridge’, ‘The Beeswing’, ‘The Hawk’, ‘The Steamboat’ hornpipes and many others, all of the highest quality. I believe that a history of this talented fiddler and composer will be of interest to all players of and listeners to traditional music.
Before I begin the story of this intriguing character some information regarding the hornpipe is in order. The hornpipe was a primitive double reed instrument dating from around the 13th century. The dance and its related music came to have its maritime associations around the middle of the 18th century. As many ships companies carried a resident fiddler, music was readily available for dancing, thus providing a much needed form of daily exercise. Much of the even-rhythmical passage work coincided with the style of the reel, but the dotted rhymic characteristic of so many hornpipes were a later mid-19th century innovation and became extremely popular in Ireland. There is a marked differentiation in tempo between even and uneven rhythm hornpipes. The former, usually played in Scotland are generally played at 6-104-112 whereas the latter played mainly in Ireland tend to be more relaxed 6-69-76. When perusing any collection of Irish traditional music one is immediately struck by the extremely high quality of the hundreds of hornpipes therein e.g. in O’Neill’s or Cole’s Collections.
One wonders who the composers were who produced such marvelous tunes. Were they pipers, harpers or fiddlers? Whoever they were they were music men of unusual ability for there is an exquisite melodic quality in many hornpipes that can equal many airs. Who could beat, or even equal such great tunes as ‘The Belfast’, ‘The Derry’, ‘Chief O’Neill’s Favourite’, ‘Dwyers’, and many others far too numerous to mention here. For every composer of hornpipes known to us there are scores of great hornpipe composers totally and forever unknown to us whose melodies will be with us as long as a hornpipe is played or danced.
Composers of fine hornpipes known to us are Ed Reavy, Sean Ryan, James Scott Skinner, Paddy Kelly, Paddy Fahey and last but not least James Hill of Newcastle, Northumbria, about whom a fair amount is known and many of whose compositions have lasted to this day and can still hold their own with the best of them.
JAMES HILL
James Hill was one of the foremost fiddlers on Tyneside during the mid 19th century. He is also celebrated as a composer of numerous tunes, most hornpipes, of which I give more details later on. By looking through the list of tunes it can be seen that many are named after people, famous or lowly, local places, public houses, racehorses and contemporary events in the Newcastle area. James Hill was born in Dundee about 1814 and with his family moved to Newcastle ten years later. When living on Tyneside his main activities were between the late 1830’s and the late 1850’s. He died in Newcastle at a premature age in 1860. While hard facts concerning Hill are few and far between, a brief examination of the Victorian period between 1840 and 1850, particularly on Tyneside, can help to put the man and his music into perspective. Hill’s time on Tyneside between the 1830’s and 1860’s coincided with a period of particularly rapid industrialization and urban expansion. It was the age of iron, coal and steampower. Britain no longer remained an agriculturally based economy and the overall population growth took place against a background of migration from rural to urban areas. A large proportion of the urban, industrial population was, therefore, subject to poor housing, harsh working conditions and dreadful public health risks.
The only ‘luxury’ that many of the population had access to was a drink. This resulted in a great number of, and variety of, ‘gin palaces’ and beer parlours. Music was an integral part of many drinking establishments and the fiddle held pride of place, and music and dancing occurred everywhere a drink was drunk or a tune was played. Thousands of Irish driven from their homes by famine and disease migrated to Newcastle to work in the many factories in the region. The poorest area in Newcastle at that time was the Sandgate and in it grew a large Irish community. This community was the subject of anti-Irish Riots in 1851. It was within this decaying area occupied by the poorest part of the community that musicians like James Hill lived and worked.
PROFESSIONAL FIDDLERS
Of particular significance was the emergence during the 1840’s of public house fiddlers on a professional basis. It has been remarked that good fiddlers at that time took public houses as footballers and other celebrities have done more recently.
Professional fiddlers were rarely public house owners and were merely employed as a means of attracting customers to a particular public house. A reporter of the Newcastle scene at the time – a Richard Thornton – gives an account of the public house fiddlers and their popularity when he describes a visit with his father to a musical pub. “Our first call, I remember was to hear Jimmy Hill who was located on the Bottle Bank, Gateshead. Jimmy wrote several very fine hornpipes, ‘The Hawk’, ‘The High Level Bridge’, ‘The Low Level Bridge’, ‘Beeswing’, and many more and he was the daddy of them all at hornpipe playing. He did not live long poor fellow and was very fond of gin”. The fiddle was also popular with a number of other entertainersincluding Blind Billy Purvis (1784 – 1853), a travelling showman who played both union pipes and fiddle. Another showman of great versatility was Ned Corvan (1829 – 1860) whose act would include his own songs, monologues and violin solos.
In the case of public house fiddlers one would expect a fairly ‘robust’ style with strong bowing technique giving as much emphasis to volume as to the melodic nature of the music. In his time Hill was by far the best of the Newcastle fiddlers and was known near and far as the ‘Paganini’ of hornpipe players. As to Hill’s playing style and technique we must rely on Robert Stokes, a local reporter and music enthusiast ; “Hill had a powerful tone and capital bow-arm and his performance of such melodies as ‘Auld Robin Gray’ and ‘Roslin Castle’ was marked by a delicacy and expression which would not have disgraced a violinist of the first rank, whilst as a player of dance music he was unapproachable for power, vivacity and correct intonation”. It was also said that he could play “with untiring energy for hours altogether”. His composition exhibit a degree of complexity which must also reflect his skill as a player. A favourite key for many of his tunes was B flat, which accordion to J. Scott Skinner has a ‘velvety, very rich and fine effect”. Whilst the majority of the tunes are hornpipes, there are also jigs, a waltz, a polka and strathspeys which would suggest that he composed other types of tune which reflected the popular tastes of the audiences during that era. James Hill composed tunes to commemorate people, race horses and events and I will list some of the more interesting ones e.g.
1) Greyhound racing / Hare Coursing – ‘The Spotted Bitch’
2) Friends / Patrons
‘Spence’s Tent’ – a beer tent at the local racetrack owned by Mr Spence
‘The Marquis of Waterford’ – a racehorse owner and patron of horse racing.
‘The Hunter’ – for a hunting friend.
‘Little Jim’ – a son.
3) Industrialists
‘Atwood Hornpipe’ – honouring Charles Atwood, a Staffordshire industrialist and racehorse breeder and racer.
4) Tunes he liked to play
‘Auld Robin Gray’ – air
‘Roslin Castle’ – air
‘Fogaballa’ (Fag un Bealach) jig for his Irish friends.
5) Pubs and Publicans
‘Free Trade’ – politics and a pub so names.
‘The Hawk’ – one of Hill’s favourite pubs.
‘The Steamboat’ – a pub.
6) Places
‘The South Shore’ – (of the Tyne) called ‘The Scholar’ in Ireland.
‘The Newcastle Hornpipe’ – played by many fiddlers after the ‘High Level Bridge’.
‘The Stony Steps’ – the steps to the ferry which crossed the Tyne River.
7) Celebrities
‘Jennie’s Hornpipe’ – for Jenny Lind, the famous Swedish singer.
‘Earl Grey’ – strathspey for Earl Grey, British Prime Minister and hero of the Reform Bills.
8) Politics – ‘The Rights of Man’.
9) The Railway
‘The Navvy on the Line’ Hornpipe
‘The Locomotive’
‘The High Level Bridge’ – the railway bridge over the Tyne.
10) Racehorses
‘Underhand’ – won Northumberland Plate 1857.
‘Beeswing’ – a famous racehorse in England. Won all over in 1830’s and 1840’s and won 51 races including 25 Gold Cups. Two new variations to this hornpipe have been added by fiddler, Sean McGuire.
‘The Flying Dutchman’ – was almost as famous as Beeswing and sired one of Beeswings foals.
11) Sports / Rowing
‘The Champion’ hornpipe – for Harry Clasper who won numerous rowing races.
Readers would be curious about the status of traditional music in general in Northumbria and Newcastle in particular today and it is pleasant to say that the music is going strong there and needless to say the hornpipe is the favourite tune played there. The best known group are ‘The High Level Ranters’, a group of four who meet weekly at the Bridge Hotel in Newcastle and play traditional music and sing songs in great style and have produced four finely arranged L.P.s
ALASDAIR ANDERSON
The best known member of the group is Alasdair Anderson who plays English concertina and Northumbrian pipes, Colin Ross, who plays fiddle and pipes, Johnny Handle, accordion, piano, 4 string guitar and Tom Gilfellow, guitar and cittern. The four have a huge repertoire of tunes from Ireland, Scotland and North-East England and are, in my opinion, the best all-English group there is. Another musician from the area, better known to Irish enthusiasts is Kathryn Tickell, a star Northumbrian piper and fiddler who played in Dublin at a Pipers’ Convention some years ago. To end this articles on James Hill, I will quote a few lines from a poem written about him by a contemporary poet, Lewis Proudfoot
Time canna kill oo’r Jamie Hill
His lilting tune south shore
Still gars my feet, age cramper fast beat
Gude time upon the floor
An’ when I hear his hornpipe clear
His Bottle Band and Cage
His Barber’s Pole, these warm my soul
An’ gi’es new strength to age.
by Dr Kevin McCann
Whenever a group of traditional musicians get together for a session and play hornpipes it is a rare occasion indeed that one or more of James Hill’s compositions are not played. A few of the tunes which come to mind would be ‘The High Level Bridge’, ‘The Low Level Bridge’, ‘The Beeswing’, ‘The Hawk’, ‘The Steamboat’ hornpipes and many others, all of the highest quality. I believe that a history of this talented fiddler and composer will be of interest to all players of and listeners to traditional music.
Before I begin the story of this intriguing character some information regarding the hornpipe is in order. The hornpipe was a primitive double reed instrument dating from around the 13th century. The dance and its related music came to have its maritime associations around the middle of the 18th century. As many ships companies carried a resident fiddler, music was readily available for dancing, thus providing a much needed form of daily exercise. Much of the even-rhythmical passage work coincided with the style of the reel, but the dotted rhymic characteristic of so many hornpipes were a later mid-19th century innovation and became extremely popular in Ireland. There is a marked differentiation in tempo between even and uneven rhythm hornpipes. The former, usually played in Scotland are generally played at 6-104-112 whereas the latter played mainly in Ireland tend to be more relaxed 6-69-76. When perusing any collection of Irish traditional music one is immediately struck by the extremely high quality of the hundreds of hornpipes therein e.g. in O’Neill’s or Cole’s Collections.
One wonders who the composers were who produced such marvelous tunes. Were they pipers, harpers or fiddlers? Whoever they were they were music men of unusual ability for there is an exquisite melodic quality in many hornpipes that can equal many airs. Who could beat, or even equal such great tunes as ‘The Belfast’, ‘The Derry’, ‘Chief O’Neill’s Favourite’, ‘Dwyers’, and many others far too numerous to mention here. For every composer of hornpipes known to us there are scores of great hornpipe composers totally and forever unknown to us whose melodies will be with us as long as a hornpipe is played or danced.
Composers of fine hornpipes known to us are Ed Reavy, Sean Ryan, James Scott Skinner, Paddy Kelly, Paddy Fahey and last but not least James Hill of Newcastle, Northumbria, about whom a fair amount is known and many of whose compositions have lasted to this day and can still hold their own with the best of them.
JAMES HILL
James Hill was one of the foremost fiddlers on Tyneside during the mid 19th century. He is also celebrated as a composer of numerous tunes, most hornpipes, of which I give more details later on. By looking through the list of tunes it can be seen that many are named after people, famous or lowly, local places, public houses, racehorses and contemporary events in the Newcastle area. James Hill was born in Dundee about 1814 and with his family moved to Newcastle ten years later. When living on Tyneside his main activities were between the late 1830’s and the late 1850’s. He died in Newcastle at a premature age in 1860. While hard facts concerning Hill are few and far between, a brief examination of the Victorian period between 1840 and 1850, particularly on Tyneside, can help to put the man and his music into perspective. Hill’s time on Tyneside between the 1830’s and 1860’s coincided with a period of particularly rapid industrialization and urban expansion. It was the age of iron, coal and steampower. Britain no longer remained an agriculturally based economy and the overall population growth took place against a background of migration from rural to urban areas. A large proportion of the urban, industrial population was, therefore, subject to poor housing, harsh working conditions and dreadful public health risks.
The only ‘luxury’ that many of the population had access to was a drink. This resulted in a great number of, and variety of, ‘gin palaces’ and beer parlours. Music was an integral part of many drinking establishments and the fiddle held pride of place, and music and dancing occurred everywhere a drink was drunk or a tune was played. Thousands of Irish driven from their homes by famine and disease migrated to Newcastle to work in the many factories in the region. The poorest area in Newcastle at that time was the Sandgate and in it grew a large Irish community. This community was the subject of anti-Irish Riots in 1851. It was within this decaying area occupied by the poorest part of the community that musicians like James Hill lived and worked.
PROFESSIONAL FIDDLERS
Of particular significance was the emergence during the 1840’s of public house fiddlers on a professional basis. It has been remarked that good fiddlers at that time took public houses as footballers and other celebrities have done more recently.
Professional fiddlers were rarely public house owners and were merely employed as a means of attracting customers to a particular public house. A reporter of the Newcastle scene at the time – a Richard Thornton – gives an account of the public house fiddlers and their popularity when he describes a visit with his father to a musical pub. “Our first call, I remember was to hear Jimmy Hill who was located on the Bottle Bank, Gateshead. Jimmy wrote several very fine hornpipes, ‘The Hawk’, ‘The High Level Bridge’, ‘The Low Level Bridge’, ‘Beeswing’, and many more and he was the daddy of them all at hornpipe playing. He did not live long poor fellow and was very fond of gin”. The fiddle was also popular with a number of other entertainersincluding Blind Billy Purvis (1784 – 1853), a travelling showman who played both union pipes and fiddle. Another showman of great versatility was Ned Corvan (1829 – 1860) whose act would include his own songs, monologues and violin solos.
In the case of public house fiddlers one would expect a fairly ‘robust’ style with strong bowing technique giving as much emphasis to volume as to the melodic nature of the music. In his time Hill was by far the best of the Newcastle fiddlers and was known near and far as the ‘Paganini’ of hornpipe players. As to Hill’s playing style and technique we must rely on Robert Stokes, a local reporter and music enthusiast ; “Hill had a powerful tone and capital bow-arm and his performance of such melodies as ‘Auld Robin Gray’ and ‘Roslin Castle’ was marked by a delicacy and expression which would not have disgraced a violinist of the first rank, whilst as a player of dance music he was unapproachable for power, vivacity and correct intonation”. It was also said that he could play “with untiring energy for hours altogether”. His composition exhibit a degree of complexity which must also reflect his skill as a player. A favourite key for many of his tunes was B flat, which accordion to J. Scott Skinner has a ‘velvety, very rich and fine effect”. Whilst the majority of the tunes are hornpipes, there are also jigs, a waltz, a polka and strathspeys which would suggest that he composed other types of tune which reflected the popular tastes of the audiences during that era. James Hill composed tunes to commemorate people, race horses and events and I will list some of the more interesting ones e.g.
1) Greyhound racing / Hare Coursing – ‘The Spotted Bitch’
2) Friends / Patrons
‘Spence’s Tent’ – a beer tent at the local racetrack owned by Mr Spence
‘The Marquis of Waterford’ – a racehorse owner and patron of horse racing.
‘The Hunter’ – for a hunting friend.
‘Little Jim’ – a son.
3) Industrialists
‘Atwood Hornpipe’ – honouring Charles Atwood, a Staffordshire industrialist and racehorse breeder and racer.
4) Tunes he liked to play
‘Auld Robin Gray’ – air
‘Roslin Castle’ – air
‘Fogaballa’ (Fag un Bealach) jig for his Irish friends.
5) Pubs and Publicans
‘Free Trade’ – politics and a pub so names.
‘The Hawk’ – one of Hill’s favourite pubs.
‘The Steamboat’ – a pub.
6) Places
‘The South Shore’ – (of the Tyne) called ‘The Scholar’ in Ireland.
‘The Newcastle Hornpipe’ – played by many fiddlers after the ‘High Level Bridge’.
‘The Stony Steps’ – the steps to the ferry which crossed the Tyne River.
7) Celebrities
‘Jennie’s Hornpipe’ – for Jenny Lind, the famous Swedish singer.
‘Earl Grey’ – strathspey for Earl Grey, British Prime Minister and hero of the Reform Bills.
8) Politics – ‘The Rights of Man’.
9) The Railway
‘The Navvy on the Line’ Hornpipe
‘The Locomotive’
‘The High Level Bridge’ – the railway bridge over the Tyne.
10) Racehorses
‘Underhand’ – won Northumberland Plate 1857.
‘Beeswing’ – a famous racehorse in England. Won all over in 1830’s and 1840’s and won 51 races including 25 Gold Cups. Two new variations to this hornpipe have been added by fiddler, Sean McGuire.
‘The Flying Dutchman’ – was almost as famous as Beeswing and sired one of Beeswings foals.
11) Sports / Rowing
‘The Champion’ hornpipe – for Harry Clasper who won numerous rowing races.
Readers would be curious about the status of traditional music in general in Northumbria and Newcastle in particular today and it is pleasant to say that the music is going strong there and needless to say the hornpipe is the favourite tune played there. The best known group are ‘The High Level Ranters’, a group of four who meet weekly at the Bridge Hotel in Newcastle and play traditional music and sing songs in great style and have produced four finely arranged L.P.s
ALASDAIR ANDERSON
The best known member of the group is Alasdair Anderson who plays English concertina and Northumbrian pipes, Colin Ross, who plays fiddle and pipes, Johnny Handle, accordion, piano, 4 string guitar and Tom Gilfellow, guitar and cittern. The four have a huge repertoire of tunes from Ireland, Scotland and North-East England and are, in my opinion, the best all-English group there is. Another musician from the area, better known to Irish enthusiasts is Kathryn Tickell, a star Northumbrian piper and fiddler who played in Dublin at a Pipers’ Convention some years ago. To end this articles on James Hill, I will quote a few lines from a poem written about him by a contemporary poet, Lewis Proudfoot
Time canna kill oo’r Jamie Hill
His lilting tune south shore
Still gars my feet, age cramper fast beat
Gude time upon the floor
An’ when I hear his hornpipe clear
His Bottle Band and Cage
His Barber’s Pole, these warm my soul
An’ gi’es new strength to age.
