Author: Andy Turner

John Appleby

Sent by Samuel Willett, Cuckfield, Sussex to Lucy Broadwood

Lucy Broadwood and J A Fuller Maitland, English County Songs, Leadenhall Press, London, 1893.

Roud 1292

John ApplebyDownload

“From Samuel Willett, Cuckfield, Sussex, who got it from Kentish hop-pickers.”

Sam Willett, “the singing baker of Cuckfield”, sent a number of songs to Lucy Broadwood. The original copy of ‘John Appleby’ is missing from the Broadwood manuscript collection held by the EFDSS, but was most likely sent to her by Willett on 15th October 1891, accompanying a letter which states “I enclose a Yorkshire ditty also a Kentish one” (https://archives.vwml.org/records/LEB/2/89).  

Lucy Broadwood wrote in English County Songs

“This is not improbably a political song, directed against Oliver Cromwell; Kent produced many squibs upon him, in which, beside being called a brewer, he was frequently described as a drunkard, together with his wife, who was nicknamed Joan”.

However Robert B. Waltz notes that “This would seem a lot more believable if a copy could be found from before the nineteenth century, considering that Oliver Cromwell died in 1658!” (https://balladindex.org/Ballads/BrMa132.html)

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Lucy Broadwood

Lucy Etheldred Broadwood, 1858-1929

Lucy Broadwood was born at Melrose in Scotland. Her father Henry was a partner in the well-known Broadwood piano manufacturing company, senior partner from 1861 until his death. In 1864 the family moved to Lyne House, the Broadwood family home near Rusper,on the Surrey-Sussex border.

A talented singer and pianist, Lucy’s interest in folk song was prompted by her uncle, the Reverend John Broadwood, who had assembled a collection of sixteen songs, privately published in 1847, with the title Old English Songs, As Now Sung by the Peasantry of the Weald of Surrey and Sussex, and Collected by One Who Has Learnt Them by Hearing Them Sung Every Christmas from Early Childhood, by the Country People, Who Go About to the Neighbouring Houses, Singing, or “Wassailing” as It is Called, at that Season. This was republished by Lucy as Sussex Songs in 1889, in an expanded edition which included a number of songs which Lucy herself had collected by in the 1880s, and at least one collected by her father.

Having established links with other folk song enthusiasts, notably Sabine Baring-Gould in the West Country, in 1893 – a full decade before Cecil Sharp or Vaughan Williams began their collecting activities – she was able to publish English County Songs. This was edited with John Alexander Fuller Maitland (1856–1936), a music critic and writer who was also a relative of Lucy Broadwood, and a close friend throughout her life. This book attempted to present at least one song associated with each county. Kent is represented by just one song, ‘John Appleby’. In common with a number of other songs in the book, this was not collected directly by Broadwood, but had been sent to her by a correspondent – in this case, by Samuel Willett, “the singing baker of Cuckfield”, in Sussex. Willett had heard it sung by “Kentish hop-pickers”.

In 1898 Broadwood was one of the 110 founding members of the Folksong Society. She became honorary secretary in 1904 and played an important role in establishing the new body, making frequent contributions to its Journal. Her collecting activities took place primarily in Sussex; she does not appear to have collected any songs in Kent. However she was sent four songs with Kentish connections by Mrs Lucy Grahame of St Leonards in Sussex, while Ella Bull of Cottenham in Cambridgeshire sent her a version of ‘Spencer the Rover’, collected “from a Kentish man and woman”.

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Mother, mother, make my bed

From Mrs Ford

Collected by Anne Geddes Gilchrist, Blackham, Sussex, June 1906

Anne Gilchrist MSS Collection AGG/8/48, AGG/3/6/2a, Journal of the Folk-Song Society 5 (1915) pp.135-137

Roud 32444

AGG-8-48 Mother mother make my bedDownload

This song was included in the Penguin Book of English Folk Songs. The editors, Ralph Vaughan Williams and A.L. Lloyd, wrote:

There has been some argument whether this ballad derives from Lady Maisry or Lord Lovel. The manner of the lady’s impending death, which would provide the essential clue, is missing. We do not know whether she is to be put to death on account of her disgrace (like Lady Maisry) or is pining for her lover’s absence (like Lord Lovel’s sweetheart). It hardly matters. In the version of Mrs Ford, a Sussex blacksmith’s wife, the ballad is a good one.

‘Lady Maisry’ is Roud 45, Child 65, while Lord Lovel is Roud 48, Child 75. In fact this song has now been ascribed a separate Roud number, 32444. Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger, who recorded a version of the song from the gipsy singer Queen Caroline Hughes, asserted that it was “made up of floater-verses from a number of ballads and yet does not appear to be derived from any particular one”. The ballads in question being: ‘Lady Maisry’ (Child 65), ‘Lord Lovel’ (Child 75), ‘Little Musgrave’ (Child 81), ‘The Knight and Shepherd’s Daughter’ (Child 110), ‘Child Maurice’ (Child 83), ‘Fair Mary of Wallington’ (Child 91), ‘Bonny Barbara Allen’ (Child 84), ‘Fair Margaret and Sweet William’ (Child 74), ‘The Gypsy Laddie’ (Child 200) and ‘Geordie’ (Child 209).  “What does stand out,” they wrote, “and make this song unique, is that a whole series of ballad formulas have been selected and put together in a form which has remained stable”.1

  1. Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger, Travellers’ Songs from England and Scotland, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977, pp.112-15 ↩︎
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