Ella Bull

Ella Bull, 1871-1922

The following account of Ella Bull’s life is quoted from https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/194665935/ella-bull

Ella was born in 1871 into a prosperous fruit growing family from Cottenham [Cambridgeshire]. She was blind from birth, as were two of her four sisters. As a child Ella heard the domestic servants singing folk songs whilst they worked at the Bull family home, ‘Bernards’, 27 High Street, Cottenham. In 1904, Ella contacted the folk song collector W. Percy Merrick and sent him the manuscript notations of several songs, remembered directly from the singing of domestic servant Charlotte Dann (nee Few). William Percy Merrick was himself going blind, and almost certainly knew the Bull family through his involvement in the early development of IPA Braille. Merrick was a member of The Folk Song Society (founded in 1898) and he suggested Ella contacted fellow song-hunter Lucy Broadwood, a founding member and editor of The Folk Song Society’s journal.

Ella remained unmarried and died on June 6, 1922, aged 51. She is buried in the family plot in the Dissenters’ Cemetery.

Besides the songs noted from Charlotte Dann (born 1856, Willingham, Cambridgeshire), in March 1910 she took down the words of one song, ‘Young Spencer the Rover’, “from a Kentish man and woman” in Cottenham. These may have been sent directly to Lucy Broadwood, rather than coming into her possession via Percy Merrick.

The identity of the “Kentish man and woman” is unknown. In the 1911 census there are several individuals living in Cottenham whose birthplace was in Kent, but no married couples who both came from Kent. These individuals were

• William Emmans, Agricultural labourer, born Bromley, 1874
• Lily Evans, born Canterbury, circa 1880
• Emily Kimpton, née Neve, born Wittersham, 1850
• Eva J. Smith, born Plumstead, circa 1889
• Isaac Edward Young, Bricklayer, born Greenwich, circa 1877