May Day

"Hertfordshire has a long tradition of celebrating May Day ... The traditional
celebrations started very early in the morning, before dawn, when groups
of young people, usually accompanied by musicians playing instruments
such as the pipe and tabor, would gather to collect branches of may
(hawthorn) from local woodlands."

1845 processionThe Christian mother's magazine, ed. by Mrs. Milner Volume 2 page 286

1849 poem in newspaper describing collecting flowers early on May morning:

“…Even this morning—no longer ago,
I saw a shoal of shepherds out go,
With singing, anl shouting, and jolly cheer ;
Before them went a lusty tabourer,
That unto many a hornpipe play’d
Whereto they danced, each one with his maid….”

‘Illustrated London Almanack’ Vol. 5 1849, page 23

1896 May Day procession

“At Charlton-on-Otmoor, Oxon, on May morning a procession used to start from the vicarage,
headed by two men carrying a large garland of flowers on a stick. With them went six morris-dancers,
a fool or " Squire," who carried a bladder and a money-box, and a man who played the pipe and tabour”

'Old English Customs Extant at the Present Time An Account of Local Observances Festival Customs and
Ancient Ceremonies yet Surviving in Great Britain' by T. H. Titchfield, London, 1896

Chimney sweeps procession

1823, 1 May: The chimney-sweepers as usual paraded the streets, but with more pomp than last year.
In addition to their ordinary finery they had a drum & pipe, &c.

Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS.Eng.hist.c.144. Frederic Madden MSS., 'Journal for 1823', f.86.

1861
 "The juvenile members of the [sweeps] profession disport themselves in fancy dresses - faded finery
from Drury Lane, and things that once were smart from Monmouth Street - and parade the thoroughfares
with drums and fifes ... To-day, however, in violation of all the canons of art in such matters, some of the
sweeps set at nought the good old custom, and actually had the hardihood to appear in washed faces!"

By the 1880's the Jack-in-the-Green procession had changed as the sweeps were invited to a formal dinner
rather than processing round the streets:

"And on May-morning the deceivers take on the character of sweeps, and dance the unwary out of
halfpence. As for the real sweeps, they have advanced in luxury, and dine at Copenhagen-house. They
dance, too, but then it is to the sounds of hireling minstrels ; they have become respectable, and have left
the streets to cheats and imposters"

Punch [almanac] VI (London: Punch, 1844), page 196.

Jack-in-the-Green

1836
"The prisoners were dressed up in an eccentric style. Sharpe and Ellis were clowns; Davis [sic] was papered
and spangled as "My Lord," and Vincent, as "Jack in the Green."     Bird stated that yesterday morning,
about twelve o'clock, prisoners entered Bedford-row with a fife and drum, followed by an immense
crowd of persons, when they commenced dancing"

The Morning Post, 4 May 1836, page 4.

1836
“for some few years ago, the dancing on May-day began to decline; small sweeps were
observed to congregate in twos or threes, unsupported by a "green," with no *' My Lord"
to act as master of the ceremonies, and no " My Lady*' to preside over the exchequer.
Even in companies where there was a green, it was an absolute nothing — a mere sprout;
and the instrumental accompaniments rarely extended beyond the shovels and a set of
Pan-pipes, better known to the many, as a mouth organ."

"Sketches by Boz: Illustrative of Every-day Life, and Every-day People, Charles Dickens page 337

Wakes Week Lancashire

KEAW YED WAKES FESTIVAL, WESTHOUGHTON, NEAR BOLTON, LANCASHIRE
“The cotton mill and coal town of Westhoughton annually celebrates its Wakes Week Festival… According to Whittle's ‘History of Lancashire’, it is recorded that "... there used to be a grand rush- bearing, which was carried on by the people here … accompanied by a procession of pipe and tabor, and the richest household plate fixed upon a cart filled with rushes, for the church …”

'Yearbook of English Festivals' by Spicer, Dorothy Gladys, 1972

meeting and greeting

1842 It appears to be the custom to greet respectable visitors with a procession that includes the pipe and tabor.

1819 the pipe and tabor lead the procession. This tradition continued into Victorian times, sometimes with and sometimes without the pipe and tabor.

1825 Whit Monday at Lichfield.
To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.

Sir,—In the pleasant little city of Lichfield... the annual fair for the exhibition of shows, &c. is held on Whit Monday, and it is the custom on that day for a procession, accompanied with musicians, flags, &c. to be formed, composed of part of the corporation, with its inferior officers, &c. who are joined by several of the best mechanics of the place, each of whom carries a representation in miniature of his separate workshop and mode of trade,.... The procession walks from the guildhall to a high hill in the vicinity of the city, called Greenhill, (but which is now nearly surrounded by houses,) where a temporary booth has been erected, with a small space of ground enclosed at the front with boards. This booth is also decorated with flowers, and hence the fair has derived the appellation of “The Greenhill Bower.” On arriving at this booth, the gates of the enclosed park are opened and the procession enters....."

Hone Everyday Book page 667

“…There is yet enough left ... to create an association with the times of our merry forefathers. The pipe and tabor are still heard, and the morrice-dancers, with their sticks and bells, and gaudy party-coloured dresses, still display their grotesque antics in our streets….

 In 1839 General Dyott wrote: ‘I had the usual visit from the Morrice dancers in their party-coloured robes, but the old musick of tabor and pipe was missing” Evidently other people were also disappointed because the Bower Committee in 1840 agreed ‘to include a tabor and pipe amongst the music’…

The picture in the Illustrated London News of 1850 which had shown the morris men led by a pipe and tabor player, and saying: ‘“Old Taboring Billy” was the last of his race who did duty at the Bower, and he too was gone”

‘The Morris in Lichfield’ by Roy Judge Folklore 1992: Vol 103 Iss 2

1897 procession
"Jubilee pageant and sale of work at Honington Hall ....
The procession included a pipe and tabor player."

Warwick and Warwickshire Advertiser - Saturday 07 August 1897

1840:Works, by Edward Howard, Volume 1  ‘Jack Ashore’, p143

1862 wedding procession ‘ABOUT SHEIMPINGTON’
“…Here are Jemmy and Jenny Jessamy going to be married at the ivy-grown church. Pipe and tabor,
and " loud bassoon," of course, playing before….Pipe and tabor, loud bassoon and merry train pass
him, and he bows his head very sorrowfully…”

'Accepted addresses' by George Augustus H.F. Sala

"The Raree-show, or, as it was also called, Peep-show or Gallantry-show. I fancy that this device
was decrepit and well on the way to extinction in the 1850s, for its professors were usually poor
fellows of the shabbiest description. The Raree-show was a box supported on a stick or, if of the
larger variety, on a barrow, in which were placed pictures, sometimes rude paintings, but more
often engravings, which could be viewed through peep-holes on payment of a halfpenny. The
box was often surmounted by the Union Jack and by placards announcing the rarity and beauty
(both highly supposititious) of the pictures within; with perhaps an earnest entreaty to "support
the Fine Arts." Some were lighted at night by a candle. People, chiefly children, were attracted,
sometimes by sound of trumpet, in sufficient numbers to keep the proprietor's soul in his body,
but hardly more. During the Crimean War and Indian Mutiny …custom had spasms of activity,
but after 1860 …pictures grew commoner and cheaper. Then the Raree-show died the death,
at all events in London. Its tableaux were poor, and it was a sorry business. Yet we read of the
arrival of such a show in a village constituting quite an event earlier in the century...."

London and Londoners in the Eighteen-Fifties and Sixties, by Alfred Rosling Bennett, 1924 - Chapter 6 - Street Entertainers