My friend Norman Dannatt sent me a copy of the second edition of his essential history of the tinwhistle. “The History of the Tinwhistle: The Story of Robert Clarke & His Musical Invention.” Published in Great Britain by the Clarke Tinwhistle Company. ISBN 095496932-4.
I contributed the foreword. The text of the book mentions Chiff & Fipple and the Undisputed and it is our honor. (Alas, there is no emoticon for “moved and proud.”)
Hello all,
Now, please correct me if I’m wrong but I thought Robert Clark
first figured out how to mass produce a decent whistle for a very
low cost. An outstanding accomplishment in itself but I think
terming it his “musical” invention on the cover goes a little far.
It kind of implies he invented the whistle itself and to the best
of knowledge that’s not true. Hate to be a stick in the mud but
a spade is a spade. Just MHO!
Not to be to picky about it, but the title of the book refers to the tinwhistle, not the whistle, which is prehistoric. To quote from the Clarke website:
Robert Clarke, a poor farm labourer owned and played a small wooden whistle. He heard that a new material called tinplate had been invented. He asked his friend the blacksmith if he could obtain some tinplate and show him how to reproduce his wooden whistle, using this new metal product.
The new Tinwhistle played so well that Robert decided to begin a business manufacturing these instruments.
So, Robert Clarke is credited with inventing the process by which rolled conical tin whistles are made. I think the subtitle of the book is valid.
Agreed. Clarke didn’t invent the whistle, but he certainly invented the
tin version, making it a “_tin_whistle”, and the process to manufacture
it to make it the vastly consumable product it is today.
From this discussion, may I conclude that the proper name of this wind instrument we love is tinwhistle, not tin whistle, right?
My thought is that what Robert Clarke invented was NOT a new version of the (pre-historical) whistle made of tin, i. e. a tin whistle. But a brand new wind object, with holes, made of tin in the beginning: the tinwhistle.
I love all these posts that refer to my, or anyone else’s, avatars. I change mine with regularity. So, somebody will eventually come along and read about my mad scientist avatar and look up and find a picture of a turnip or something.
I have a question. What does the book say about the price of the tinwhistles in 1843? Was it really an English penny and later a halfpenny (Meg)? Or does it side with some revisionists and say the name pennywhistle is derived from buskers receiving pennies?
I haven’t read the whole book yet, but the early chapters don’t speculate on the term “pennywhistle”. Sales flyers in the early 1900 still called them “Clarke London Flageolets” or “Clarke Flageolets”. By 1903, they were $1.35 a dozen, so considerably more than a penny. in 1953, George Goddard (some relation to Clarke’s wife Sarah Goddard) wrote in the Oldham Chronicle “…one of his conceptions eventually developed into the making of the first Pennywhistle as we know it today…”
I’ve done some research and determined that while the words “penny-whistle” and “tin-whistle” both predate Clarke, neither were likely in common use until later in the 20th century.
Sorta. The OED doesn’t reflect common usage, and I’m still curious about that. As best as I can tell, neither term was common until well into the 20th century, but I’m still looking for definitive evidence on that.
