English Dance & Song 35:2 (1973) contained a song submitted by John Brune, supposedly collected from Abram Cooper in West Kent. No further details of the singer were given, but he may well have been a traveller – Brune certainly collected some songs from travellers.
Collected by John Brune, August 1962
English Dance & Song 35:2 (1973) p.59
It seems unlikely that these words were collected from a travelling singer – they look suspiciously like the work of a modern songwriter attempting to write a romantic ballad. John Brune certainly collected songs from travellers, but he also wrote songs, and seems to have had a reputation for “improving” some of the songs he collected. There is no other entry in the Roud Index for number 3184, which tends to confirm these suspicions.
From Ted Briggs
Collected by Francis Collinson, Bethersden, 16th March 1943
Francis Collinson Manuscript Collection COL/1/1
Ted Briggs was one of a number of singers from whom Francis Collinson collected a single song. Born on 27th July 1872 and baptised on 29th September 1872, he appears to have lived in Bethersden practically his entire life. His parents were James, an agricultural labourer, and Mary née Woodcock, both natives of Bethersden. At the age of 8, the 1881 Census listed Edward as a scholar, living with his Aunt and Uncle Elizabeth and James Dunster, in The Street, Bethersden. In 1891 he was a grocer’s assistant for Jabez T Joy, grocer and farmer, at Knoxbridge, Frittenden. In 1894 he married Alice Adesa (or Avisa) Oliver, and the two subsequent censuses showed them living in The Street, with two sons. The younger son, George, was still living with his parents in 1921, at Elizabeth House, The Street. Ted is listed in these census records as agricultural labourer or general farm labourer – or, in 1911, as “Worker on farm sometimes with portable steam saw”.
In September 1939, he was living with his wife Alice at 10 Council Houses, Bethersden, and listed as a casual labourer. A short obituary in the Kentish Express, 11th November 1955 stated that he had been a road foreman for West Ashford Council before his retirement, around 18 years previously. He was buried in the churchyard of Bethersden parish church on 5th November 1955.
From Mrs Baker
Collected by Francis Collinson, Maidstone, Kent July 1944
Francis Collinson Manuscript Collection COL/4/24
From Mrs Baker
Collected by Francis Collinson Maidstone, 16th February 1946
Francis Collinson Manuscript Collection COL/2/25A
This song began life as a poem by Jane Taylor (1783-1824), best known for having written the words of ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’. The poem is included in The “Original poems” and others, by Ann and Jane Taylor and Adelaide O’Keeffe, edited by E. V. Lucas, with illustrations by F. D. Bedford, available at https://archive.org/details/originalpoemsoth00tayl/page/103/mode/1up.
The following words, noted by Alfred Williams in the Upper Thames region, are almost identical to Taylor’s original lyric:
Before the bright sun rises over the hill
In cornfields poor Mary is seen,
With patience her little apron to fill
With the few scattered ears she can glean.
She never leaves off, nor runs out of place
To play, to idle, or chat,
Except now and then to wipe her hot face,
Or to fan herself with her broad hat.
‘Poor girl! hard at work in the heat of the sun,
How tired and worn you must be!
Why don’t you leave off as the others have done,
And sit with them under the tree?’
‘Oh, no! for my mother lies ill in her bed,
Too feeble to spin or to knit;
My poor little brothers are crying for bread
And yet she can’t give them a bit.
How can I be merry, or idle at play
While they are so hungry and ill?
Oh, no! I would rather work hard all the day
My blue little apron to fill.’
‘Mary, the Gleaner’ from the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre Folk Arts collection https://apps.wiltshire.gov.uk/communityhistory/Folk/Verse/381?isCommunityPage=False
From Mr Baker
Collected by Francis Collinson, Maidstone, 16th February 1946
Francis Collinson Manuscript Collection COL/5/25A
From Mr Baker
Collected by Francis Collinson, Maidstone 16th February 1946
Francis Collinson Manuscript Collection COL/5/29
The song was included in the Penguin Book of English Folk Songs, edited by Ralph Vaughan Williams and A.L. Lloyd, 1959, with six verses in all. In the revised edition, Classic English Folk Songs (EFDSS, 2003), Malcolm Douglas notes that verses 1, 2, 3 and 6 were as printed in the Journal, while verses 4 and 5 had probably been adapted from Alfred Williams’ Folk Songs of the Upper Thames (1923) – these had been collected from Henry ”Wassail” Harvey, of Cricklade in Wiltshire.
From Mrs Baker
Collected by Francis Collinson, Maidstone, 16th February 1946
Francis Collinson Manuscript Collection COL/6/8
Writing in the Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society Vol 5 No 1 (1946), Francis Collinson provided a brief paragraph about Mr and Mrs Baker of Maidstone:
His wife also knows folk-songs and I got the following songs from her: “The oyster girl,” “The bold fisherman” and “The sergeant in the wagon train.” She was born at Mereworth in Kent and learned her songs from her father, who used to sit and sing them in the chimney corner in the evening. He knew over a hundred and fifty songs. Mrs. Baker was hopeful of getting some more songs from her sister, but the latter unfortunately died very shortly afterwards, and her songs died with her.
Frances Bell was born on 5th October 1879, and baptised at St Lawrence, Mereworth on 26th October 1879. Her father Josiah was a labourer. Both he and his wife Mary née Cheesman had been born and raised in Mereworth. In 1881 they were living at an unspecified address in Butcher’s Lane, Mereworth; in 1891 the family (now including 5 children) were residing at Moorcocks Cottages in Butcher’s Lane.
At the time of the 1901 census Frances was 21, and working as a cook for farmer John Godwin at Hazlewood, East Peckham. She married Harry Baker at St Lawrence, Mereworth on 19th December 1903, and by 1911 they were living in Maidstone, initially in Upper Fant Road and then later at 5 Evelyn Road.
She died at Maidstone in 1954, aged 75.
Frances’ father Josiah was baptised at Mereworth on 19th February 1845. He lived in Mereworth all his life, with censuses from 1881 through to 1911 showing him living in Butcher’s Lane; his occupation was consistently given as agricultural labourer, with the exception of 1901, when he was listed as “Fruit grower, own account”. By 1911 he was a widower, and living with his daughter Kate and son-in-law Jesse Pantrey (also a farm labourer) at Herne House Cottages, Butcher’s Lane. I have not as yet been able to identify his date of death, but this would appear to have occurred before the 1921 census.
Frances had two sisters. The elder, Annie Louisa, died at the age of 16, in 1893. Therefore Kate, born 25th January 1886, must have been the sister from whom “Mrs. Baker was hopeful of getting some more songs”. She was still living in the family home in Butcher’s Lane, Mereworth in 1901. In 1905 she married Jesse Robert Pantrey, and they set up home at Herne House Cottages – also in Butcher’s Lane. In 1911 they were living at 8 Kent Street, Mereworth in 1921, with a son and a daughter. By 1939 they had moved to 8 Council Cottage, Herne Pound. Kate died in the second quarter of 1944.
The Gleaner (Roud 13638)
Mary at the garden gate (Roud 418)
Oyster girl (Roud 875)
Sergeant in the wagon train (Roud 1354)
Although in the 1946 JEFDSS Francis Collinson ascribed ‘Bold fisherman’ to Mrs Baker, his notebooks record that it was actually sung by Mr Baker.
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