Henry Clough was a player of the Northumbrian pipes, or Northumbrian smallpipes

Northumbrian smallpipes

The Northumbrian smallpipes are bellows-blown bagpipes from the North East of England.In a survey of the bagpipes in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford University, the organologist Anthony Baines wrote: It is perhaps the most civilized of the bagpipes, making no attempt to go farther than the...

. He was a miner, living in Newsham, in south-eastern Northumberland

Northumberland

Northumberland is the northernmost ceremonial county and a unitary district in North East England. For Eurostat purposes Northumberland is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "Northumberland and Tyne and Wear" NUTS 2 region...

. He was the father of Tom Clough

Tom Clough

Tom Clough , known as 'The Prince of Pipers', was an English player of the Northumbrian pipes, or Northumbrian smallpipes. He had studied the instrument with the noted piper Thomas Todd, and from his own father Henry Clough...

, 'The Prince of Pipers'. Several previous generations of the family had also been pipers, Henry's father, 'Old Tom' (1830-1885), and grandfather Henry (1789-1842) among them. Since the instrument assumed its modern keyed form at the beginning of the 19th century, the family's playing tradition goes back unbroken to that time.

Music

Some tunes from his music manuscripts can be found on the FARNE archive, together with those of his son, and an authoritative book on the family and its music, based on these, was published by the Northumbrian Pipers' Society as The Clough Family of Newsham (ISBN 0 902 510 20 7). These sources give considerable insight into the traditional playing technique and style of the instrument.
Henry and his son were both fine solo pipers, regularly winning competitions, and their duet playing was also said to be superb - a showpiece was Sir Sidney Smith's March. However his playing, unlike his son's, was never recorded.