[5] The obituary further mentions him winning, at the age of eighteen, a piping competition held at the same time as the baronial court in Elsdon, which would have been about the end of September, 1798.
Lamshaw's obituary concludes It is said, it was the intention of Earl Percy to have had him introduced to the theatres in the metropolis, but a consumption has put an early period to his mortal existence.
[8] At the next Tynemouth Fair, on 2 November 1804, he appeared again: At eleven o’clock the Duke of Northumberland’s bailiff, accompanied by a vast concourse of neighbouring gentlemen and farmers, attended by the Duchess’s bagpiper, in proper uniform, proclaimed the fair in the usual way[9] He died, of consumption, in January, 1806, in Toll Street, North Shields; his father (also William) worked as a boatman for Richardson's brewery in the town, until his death in a work accident in 1817.
[12] Further, the use of the phrase 'improved small pipes', without further explanation, is used in a way as if it would be widely understood, suggesting that keyed instruments became fairly common very soon after their introduction around the turn of the century.
Here rests the dust of one whose self-taught strains, Northumbria charm’d, though short on earth his stay; Yet Hope now prompts, that in celestial plains He swells the chorus of the heav’nly lay.
As Lamshaw played in his official capacity at the inaugural Tynemouth and North Shields Fair, it would have made sense to compose a piece specifically for the occasion, exploiting the compass of the novel 4-keyed instrument.