John Grant of Edinburgh was appointed Instructor at the Army School of Piping in Edinburgh Castle in 1919. According to some, he was dismissed a short time later. He was known to have published a book entitled Piobaireachd, Its Origin and Construction (1905).
This set of great highland bagpipes, the drones and chanter of blackwood, with engraved sterling silver mounts, belonged to John Grant. The chanter is stamped “P.HENDERSON GLASGOW”. Silver hallmarked identify the Glasgow Assay Office and 1903 as the date letter.
Willie McCallum’s spectacular 1898 Full Silver Henderson bagpipe (below). I had the pleasure of meeting Willie and seeing this bagpipe in 1999.
The Henderson bagpipe to the right is made of ebony with sterling silver mounts hallmarked 1918. It has been played by several outstanding pipers with many medals to its credit. Note the early repair to the bass mid-section. It is currently owned and played by Yahya Hussein of Briarwood NY. The following words were provided by Yahya. “These pipes left Scotland around 1920 and came to New Zealand where it was more recently acquired by Greg Wilson (whose CD cover photo I enclose). From him it went to Dr. Brendan Eade and then to Richard Hawke. From there it returned to the UK when it was in the possession of a former piper of the Scots Guards now turned police officer Mr. Danny Fleming when it went to Finlay Cameron and finally on to me.”
The pipes below were turned by George Dey while in the employ of Peter Henderson. They are cocuswood mounted in aluminum and appear to have been fitted with Duncan MacRae’s tuning slides. I received the following letter from his Great Great Nephew.
“Ron
I sent you some pictures of my Great Great Uncle’s pipes a while back and you have posted them to your website (which is great). Since you took interest in them I thought you may be interested in knowing a bit more of the story behind them. As I may or may not have stated before, G. Dey was a student of Gillies and worked under his management at Henderson’s shop. I never really knew what his role was at the shop but have I since found out he worked turning pipes. By a stroke of luck, I happened across a fellow, Dave MacKinnon (70 years old and lives in Minnesota) who played with my father and was the Pipe Sergeant under PM Dey for many years (also a student of his for 7 years.). He knew George very well. I asked him if he knew anything about George’s pipes and their origin. Dave, without doubt, knew that George turned the pipes himself in Henderson’s shop (pre-1906) and chose to mount them in Aluminium to lighten the load of the traditional silver/ivory. Seems that these pipes were a custom set made by George himself. Anyway… just thought I would share that little bit of knowledge with you. I also found out that the Canadian Military forced PM G. Dey to retire as Pipe Major of the 36th HAA Pipe Band in the 50’s at the age of 80 years old…wow! Dave Mackinnon was asked to step up in his place.
Regards,
Randy
A wonderful set of full silver Henderson bagpipes (below) hallmarked 1922
Hi Ron
I obtained your email from your website. I have a set of Peter Henderson pipes that have a fairly unique history that I would like to try get some further information/authentication on and possibly a valuation. Sorry to make this a long story but I will try give you all the information that I have.
I have had the pipes since 1973 when they were purchased for me by my parents. I had been doing well on the solo junior piping scene in South Africa but was using a set owned by the school. I was 12 at the time, having learnt to play at the age of 7. My tutor had recommended that I get my own (better quality) set and put my parents in touch with the widow of a piper who had passed away. This gent was Lallie Donaldson and was a well known bandsman and soloist in South Africa (although I believe he had a Scottish Regimental background). This set was used for his solo’s, with a different set for his band work which his widow retained. My tutor recommended them as being a good price for a quality set of pipes but that was all the information received, we had no idea of the manufacturer or age.
In 1975 I attended a winter camp given by Cpt John Maclellan. It was he who first identified them as being vintage Peter Henderson – he did this partly by doing a direct comparison with his own pipes which I understand were his ‘official’ pipes as Piper to the Queen Mum. He made on offer to purchase these from me but there was no way I was parting with them as I had been picking up the medal for the ‘Best Toned Pipes’ at practically every games I played at. He did advise me to try and to trace the history of the pipes.
After speaking to a number of people in the piping world in South Africa I was able to put the following together. Please understand that I have no paperwork or documentation of any form to back any of this up – it is purely by word of mouth from men who are now sadly all passed on.
The pipes were one of a set of 10 instruments that were a royal gift to the Battalion of the Blackwatch regiment that was permanently based in South Africa after the Anglo-Boer war. This was apparently to facilitate the establishment of the first Pipe Band in South Africa and I was led to believe that this happened in 1898. This Regiment was to become the Transvaal Scottish Regiment and the band was formally established as such in 1902. After the Second World War, the Jocks made a donation of instruments to the South African Caledonian Society to establish the first civilian band in SA. This was to become the Germiston Caledonian Society Pipe band. In the mid 1960’s the pipes were just languishing in the band store – they were/are considerably heavier than most, more modern pipes and as such were unpopular. Lallie Donaldson did a deal with the band by which he supplied a new set of lightweight modern pipes in exchange for the Hendersons which he played as his solo set until his death in 1973.
The pipes came with a R.G. Hardie ABW chanter with a casien sole. I used this chanter for my solo’s (I still have it) and just swapped around with a band chanter for band work. Sadly, one silly thing that I did was to get rid of the original pipe box which was too small for my needs. It was a wooden box of dovetail construction and brass hinges, lock etc. It was lined with a green felt like material and had a paper label inside the lid – P.Henderson, Glasgow – on it plus some other details, maybe an address(?) that I no longer remember. The box also had the names of three (I assume) army pipers painted on the lid – again I sadly cannot remember any of these.
