Kate Oliver

Kate Oliver, née Buckman, 1881-1967

Between 1943 and 1952, Francis Collinson collected nine songs or song tunes from a Mrs Oliver of Bethersden. Collinson included her tune for ‘I wish I wish’ in the Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, 1946, writing:

Mrs. Oliver of Bethersden, Kent, comes from a naturally musical family each member of which played an instrument, either violin, concertina or piano, and all of them self-taught. She played the airs of the tunes to me on the English concertina and spoke the words to me afterwards. She learned the songs from her father, who knew upwards of a hundred songs. I have noted a number of songs from her in addition to the incomplete one below, including “Blackberry Fold,” “The Cottage in the wood,” ” Mary at the garden gate ” and “The sprig of thyme.” Mrs. Oliver is a woman of middle age.1

Looking at records from the 1939 Register, there are at least three married women in Bethersden, with the surname Oliver, who could meet the imprecise description “a woman of middle age”. The most likely seemed to be Mrs Kate Oliver, if only because her father was Horace Buckman, who George Frampton has identified as having taken part in musical activities in the village before the First World War2. In fact, George has been able to positively identify Kate Oliver as Collinson’s singer – in an article in Bygone Kent he quotes Mrs Oliver’s daughter Mrs Rhoda Sargeant (born 1925), who remembered Francis Collinson visiting the family to note down the songs, and later hearing them sung on ‘Country Magazine’:

My mother learnt the songs as a young girl from her father who played them on his concertina which she learnt to play when she was quite young — it was a natural talent, as she had no lessons except a few tips from her father who was also a natural player.3

Kate was born in 1881, the eighth child of agricultural labourer Jeremiah Buckman, originally from High Halden, and Sarah, née Russell. The 1881 census (shortly before Kate was born) showed the family living at Paris Cottages, Bethersden. In 1891, they were at Bateman Lane, Bethersden, but Jeremiah and his two youngest daughters were back at Paris Corner in 1901 (Kate’s mother Sarah had died in 1896). Kate, now 19, was working as a domestic help.

In 1906 she married farm labourer John Charles Oliver, and at the next census were to be found living at Paris Corner, with a baby son. Her father, Jeremiah had died in November 1910, so John was shown as head of the household. In 1921 their address was 5 St Peters Row, Bethersden; they had another three sons and one daughter. John was now working as a Roadstone Carrier for H Godden Contractor, while Kate’s occupation was shown as “Home Duties”. In September 1939 they were at 5 Council Houses, Bethersden; Kate’s occupation was “Unpaid Domestic Duties”. Three children were still in the parental home, including their youngest child Rhoda, who was approaching fourteen.

Kate Oliver died aged 85, on 20th March 1967. She was buried at Bethersden Methodist Church. An obituary in the Kentish Express, 31st March 1967, gave her address at the time of her death as Bailey Field, Bethersden.

Songs

In his article for JEFDSS, 1946, Collinson mentioned having noted ‘Blackberry Fold’ and ‘The sprig of thyme’ from Mrs Oliver. Neither of these appears to have survived in his collection.

Rhoda Sargeant told George Frampton that her mother sang a song which started “As I walked out one summer morning”. This might have been a version of ‘The Banks of Sweet Primroses’.

  1. Songs Collected by Francis M. Collinson, Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Dec., 1946), pp.13-22 ↩︎
  2. George Frampton, The Millen Family of Bethersden, Kent, Musical Traditions, https://www.mustrad.org.uk/articles/millens.htm ↩︎
  3. George Frampton, Country Magazine in Kent, Bygone Kent, Vol. 16, No. 7 ↩︎

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