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

1860 poem: ‘The Month May’ advertisement from John Barren  Merchant Tailor and General Outfitter’Leeds Times - Saturday 12 May 1860

1862 poem:

1860's poem ‘May Day Songs’ by WC Bennett:

"Your fathers met the May,
With laughter, dance, and tabor;
Come, be as wise as they:
Come steal today from labour...
Talk not of want of leisure;
Believe me, life was made,
For laughter, mirth and pleasure,
Far more than toil and trade"

'May Day In South London: a history' by Neil Transpontine

1872 Whitsuntide amusements at Crystal Palace, newspaper advertisement:
“CRYSTAL PALACE.-WHITSUNTIDE AMUSEMENTS.
From Monday to Friday next. Special and varied Attractions. Each day at 12.30 a Comic Ballet in the Opera Theatre. …
-How Spring was Welcomed in 1572.Sprts and Pastimes of the Sixteenth Century: Quintain, Quarter Sta. Bellringing.
Pipe and Tabor, Robin Hood and Maid Marian, Queen of May, Grotesque and Characteristic Dances, &c.,
Grand Ballet of Spring Flowers …”

1893 concert; song 'The May Queen' The Palace Journal April 28,1893

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.

1831
“the green and flowery festivities of May-day only survive, if the grim show may not rather be deemed a posthumous
and spectral pageant, in the Saturnalia of the chimney-sweeping imps, who … hop around a faded Jack-in-the-Green,
to the dissonant clatter of their shovels and brushes. Sad and sooty spectacle! art thou indeed all that is left to us
of the pristine May-day glories, and the merry pipe and tabor… we can now only send our thoughts into the green
woods, and go a Maying with our memories”

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

1842 Lambeth, London

 Two gentlement "were driving a spirited horse past ...
Kennington- road, when some sweeps,
accompanied with drums and fifes, startled
the horse, which became wholly unmanageable,
and in a few seconds dashed the vehicle against
the iron corner post"

1844: THE MAY-DAY OF STEAM.
“No longer milkmaids dance along the Strand on May-morning - even the leaves of Jack-in-the-Green
are withered - and the chimney-sweepers, who were wont to summon our half-pence by the rattling
broom and shovel, no longer call on May-day for the yearly dole. True it is, that imposters, men lost
to the sweetness of self-respect, do on May-day caper on the streets, and with ghastly merriment
strive to make us smile and pay. But, reader, put no faith in such forlorn merry-makers ; they are not
sweepers. They never made soot their daily bread"

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

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.

1893 memories of past sweeps parades in Cheltenham:

“I received some more information from Mr. Ames, a chimney- sweep living in Swindon Road, Cheltenham.
  He says he used to go out along with them, and his father before him. … The gridiron on the clown's back
seems to be traditional;… There used to be pipe and tabbor..."

Jack-in-the-Green

1836 court report:
"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.

1844 London newpaper proposal:

“…Let the Lord Mayor invite her Majesty to a dinner, to be hereafter given at the Mansion-house. We entertain
no doubt that the invitation will be accepted, and will lead to other fetes and other processions… our streets will
resound to the music of the pipe, drum, and tabor, and in the bright colours of flags and streamers, and in the
brighter face of a happy and patriotic queen, we shall forget for the passing day our leaden skies and our watery sun….”

Bell's Weekly Messenger 26 October 1844

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 is 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

1848 newspaper report:

“LICHFIELD GREENHILL BOWER.-We understand great preparations are being made for this ancient
festivity, which takes place on Whit-Monday, and "of all the days that are in the year," we may safely say
Whit-Monday is the one when holiday making, fun and gaiety, reign supreme at Lichfield. In a little work,
"The Illustrated Guide to Lichfield," (just published), the following History of Greenhill Bower is given :-
"The origin of this singular ceremony is unknown… the constables, attended by armed men, wearing
their colours of distinction, with drums beating, preceded by Morrice-dancers, with the maid, Marian,
tabor and pipe, &c., conducted the bailiff and sheriff, and other city officers, to the bower…”

Staffordshire Advertiser 03 June 1848

1850 Court Leet, Lichfield Wolverhampton Chronicle and Staffordshire Advertiser - Wednesday 29 May 1850

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

1849
" Many of the old games, and masques, and mummings, which were in accordance with the simple habits
of our homely forefathers, have long since passed away…What we have here presented is a faithful
portraiture of rural England only twenty years ago; and there are still, we believe, a few green quiet corners
in our island, where Plough Monday is kept up to the present day....January, with its short days and long nights,
though it still comes as of old, with frost, and snow, and cold, and darkness, brings with it once a year its merry
Plough Monday,… sometimes the old-fashioned pipe and tabor, which have been blown and beaten
by the descendants of the same family, through many generations, are called in to awaken the sleeping
echoes of winter. You hear the noisy group long before they heave into sight along the winding lane
…They knocked at the door—there was no answer. “ Betsy” rattled his box louder than ever, but
no one came; drum, tabor, pipe, and violin thundered and screamed in vain… Gee-ho ! Comc-up!”
exclaimed the man who held the stilts or handles of the plough, and in a moment the deep bright
share was into the ground: backwards and forwards it went, cutting deeper, and the men pulling
stronger at every furrow they made, until the whole lawn at the front of the miser s house lay brown,
bare, and ridgy as a newly-ploughed field...."

‘Illustrated London Almanack’ Vol. 5 1849

1884 'bottler' playing pandean pipes
outside a Punch and Judy booth

1851 GREAT PUBLIC MEETING NELSON EXAMINER AND NEW ZEALAND CHRONICLE, VOLUME IX, 11 JANUARY 1851, PAGE 178

more pandean pipe player with Punch and Judy here onwards

"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

1864 ”Besides the usual carol singers and hymn singers who went from house to house I recollect we were
always visited by a piper a little before Xmas" The writer added that the instrumental combination of three-holed
pipe and tabor drum was a rare one by that date.”

London, British Architectural Library, Manuscripts and Archives Collection, Sir George Gilbert Scott Papers, Sc GGS/3, notebook 1,
'Personal & Professional Recollections', f. 27, written 22 January 1864; published in Recollections of Nineteenth-Century Buckinghamshire, p. 18.

Victorian, with pandean pipes

more on dancing bears here