Bob Ellison

Robert Ellison, c1836-?

Cecil Sharp noted down thirteen sea shanties from Bob Ellison at Belvedere on the 4^th and 7^th September 1914. Belvedere, between Abbey Wood and Erith, was at that time part of Kent; since 1965 it has formed part of the London Borough of Bexley. Although he didn’t specify this in his manuscripts, when publishing one of Bob Ellison’s songs in the Journal of the Folk-Song Society, Sharp made it clear that he had collected the song at the Sailors’ Home in Belvedere. This was Belvedere House in Erith, run by the Royal Alfred Seafarers’ Society, which had been opened on New Year’s Day 1876, as a home for “Worn-out and Disabled Merchant Seamen”. The charity remained in Belvedere until 1978, before relocating to Belvedere House, Banstead, Surrey, which still operates as a residential home for men or women from a seafaring background.

Sharp must have written to the Governor of the Home, Captain John Dowdy, enquiring if any of the residents were singers, because his archive contains two letters from the Captain. The first (CJS1/13/1/10/1), dated October 14^th 1908, is short and to the point:

Dear Sir in answer to yours re. the old men singing to you I regret very much to say that I have no singing men in my crew. I have asked them times out of number to try but they have no voice left in them. Therefore it would only be waste of time and expense to you to come.

Sharp was clearly persistent, because a subsequent reply  (CJS1/13/1/10/2), dated October 22^nd began “You are at liberty to come to the Home and do the best you can”, and advised on the best time of day to visit. We do not know if Sharp visited the Home in 1908, but clearly he did go there in 1914 – by which time, one imagines, there would have been a number of new inmates including, presumably, Bob Ellison. In fact, he not only took down shanties from Mr Ellison, but from at least one member of the Belvedere’s staff: as well as the verses of the shanty ‘Shanadar’ which he got from Bob Ellison, he took down another 3 verses which were “Given me by the Hall Porter of Belvedere” (CJS2/10/3028); and the song ‘Drunken Sailor’, which he collected from George Conway at the Sailor’s Home in Leman Street, Whitechapel, includes a verse which Sharp noted was “given me by Doorkeeper of Belvedere Home” (CJS2/10/3025).

Sharp recorded that Mr Ellison was 78 years old, but other than that we know practically nothing about him. However Sharp’s notes for ‘Shanadar’ quote the singer as saying “I am nice and comfortable here but I’m afraid they will want to bury me in a church yard. I would rather be buried on the high seas on a dirty wild night than in Westminster Abbey!”

Songs

• Blow the Man Down (Roud 2624)
• The Dead Horse (Roud 3724)
• Haul The Bowline (Roud 652)
• Heave Away My Johnny (Roud 616)
• Heaving The Lead (Roud 13255)
• Ranzo (Roud 2626)
• Rio Grand (Roud 317)
• Sally Brown (Roud 2628)
• Shallow Brown (Roud 2621)
• Shanadar (Roud 324)
• So Handy (Roud 814)
• Whisky For My Johnny (Roud 651)
• Wo Stormalong (Roud 216)
• Yankee John (Roud 13259)