24/11/2025
✨The Piper who came to Belfast✨
In the autumn of 1824, Scottish piper Graham Stuart argued with French fiddler and nobleman Count Bender that the Scottish and Irish were more welcoming and charitable than people in mainland Europe. When it became apparent that their dispute was not going to be settled by talking over beers in a London coffee house, the musicians, both of whom were close friends, hatched an extraordinary plan: they agreed to spend three years busking for worthy causes. They planned to perform twice a day in major towns; Stuart in Scotland and Ireland, Bender in France and Belgium. Their collected money would be lodged with a local charity. Once a receipt was secured, it would be sent for verification to their mutual contact in London: whoever raised the most money would win £5,000. As both were former military men of rank, they also agreed to don disguises and perform under assumed names. Stuart decided to wear to wear tartan trousers and to adorn his head with a Tam O’Shanter bonnet, a flaming red wig and a pair of gaudy green ‘jampot’ spectacles. By 1828, ‘The Wandering Piper’ and ‘French Count’ were ready for the road.
Reaching Belfast in November 1831, the Press were intrigued as to the identity of this ‘eccentric’ who was parading up and down Donegall Street playing a set of bellows-driven Lowland pipes and calling out for donations. Having spent three days in the town, he marched to the top of Donegall Street, lodged his money at the Poor House, got a receipt, sent it to London and proceeded northwards. Nearing the end of 1831, Count Bender died while on a trip to Rome. By November of the following year, the piper had raised £680 for charities, an achievement celebrated by Norfolk-based artist Thomas Wageman who painted a portrait of the piper dressed in his distinctive costume. In 1833, Stuart published an account of his adventures in Tour of the Wandering Piper, through Parts of Scotland and Ireland, written by himself. Shortly before he died in February 1839 at Mercier Street Hospital, Dublin, Captain Graham Stuart bequeathed his entire personal estate to the hospital; no doubt the remainder of £5,000.
