By 1894 Fenwick was described as "one of the oldest and best-known small pipes players in the county";[1] by this time he seems to have been playing for about 50 years.
One of the Reid tunes is a 5-strain set of The Dorrington Lads, from Mrs Oliver, whose comment is noted that "This is most likely the same copy that poor Will Allen was trying to play when his Spirit was called Home to a more blissful Rest".
One long variation set, of six strains, on the tune "Highland Black Laddie", called "Highland Laddie" in the manuscript, is attributed to Robert Mackintosh, a Scottish violinist and composer, whose son Abraham had settled in Newcastle; it seems to be unknown elsewhere, but an unusual variant of the same tune in the Rook manuscript, also called "Highland Laddie", is thematically related to the final pair of these variations - together they suggest that the original composition had eight strains.
The manuscript includes, a body of tunes in Cornelius Stanton's hand, consisting of simple traditional tunes as well as popular songs from the 1840s and 1850s, including several by Stephen Foster, and the music hall song "Villikins and his Dinah".
So it is reasonable to suppose that these form the earliest part of the manuscript, perhaps from when Fenwick was learning to play, but certainly after 1840, and before Stanton's death in 1866.
Despite an identification, made in the manuscript, of Fenwick with a solicitor of that name who lived in Hexham, which is apparently a mistake by a later owner, the records of the Northumbrian Small Pipes Society show that after 1890 James Fenwick was a tailor, living in North Shields.
This seems to tie in with an 1851 census entry, listing a James Fenwick, tailor and publican, at the Phoenix Inn in Bedford Street, North Shields.