Tag: Cecil Sharp

Bob Ellison

Robert Ellison, c1836-?

Cecil Sharp noted down fourteen sea shanties from Bob Ellison at Belvedere on the 4th and 7th 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 14th 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 22nd 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

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Children at Trosley (Trottiscliffe)

On 29th July 1908 Cecil Sharp noted down six children’s singing games at the primary school in ‘Trosley’. This is in fact the local pronunciation of the village officially known as Trottiscliffe – although it has been referred to as both Trosley and Trotterscliffe.

The following description is from The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland, 1868, quoted from https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/KEN/Trottiscliffe

TROTTISCLIFFE, (or Trotterscliffe or Trosley), a parish in the hundred of Larkfield, lathe of Aylesford, county Kent, 9 miles W. of Maidstone, its post town, and 2 N.E. of Rotham. The village, situated at the foot of the chalk hills, was given by King Offa to Rochester Priory in 788, and subsequently came to the Bishops of Rochester, whose palace was built here in 1185 by Bishop Granville. The land is partly in hop-grounds. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Canterbury, value £332, in the patronage of the lord chancellor. The church, dedicated to SS. Peter and Paul, has been restored and modernised. There is an endowed National school. At a farm in the vicinity Druidical stones, British coins, copper swords, and other relics of antiquity have been discovered.

The name ‘Trosley’ survives today in nearby Trosley Country Park.

Songs

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Sons of Levi

From James Beale

Collected by Cecil Sharp, Warehorne, 23rd September 1908

Cecil Sharp MSS, Folk Words CJS2/9/1775, Folk Tunes CJS2/10/1922

Roud 2430

CJS2-10-1922 Sons of LeviDownload

Cecil Sharp included this carol in his English-Folk Carols (1911) with the following note:

Sung by Mr. James Beale and Mrs. Harding at Ham Street.

The words are obviously very corrupt. The first and the last two stanzas in the text are substantially as they were sung to me, but it has been necessary to make some small alterations in the other two stanzas. In making these changes I have been guided by a broadside version of the song printed by J. Nicholson of Belfast, which however, in some places is almost as unintelligible as the Ham Street version. The Irish broadside is a Masonic song in nine stanzas beginning thus:

Come all you Craftsmen that do wish
To propagate the grand design,
Come, enter into our high temple
And learn the art that is divine.

The last two stanzas given me at Ham Street are not in the broadside.

This carol is, and has been for many years, annually sung at Christmas in Ham Street and the neighbouring villages by a party of male carol singers. I have not found or heard of it elsewhere; nor can I connect the air, which is a strong one, with any other English folk-tune.

A broadside version entitled Sons of Levi, A New Masonic Song can be found on the National Library of Scotland’s Word on the Street website where it is stated that “the song was eventually inherited, from the Freemasons, by the Orange Lodge and is still part of their repertoire. The song is a description, in biblical terms, of a new member’s initiation”.

The Baffled Knight

From James Beale

Collected by Cecil Sharp, Warehorne, 23rd September 1908

Cecil Sharp MSS, Folk Words CJS2/9/1783, Folk Tunes CJS2/10/1927

Roud 11, Child 112

CJS2-10-1927 Baffled KnightDownload

Cecil Sharp gave this song the title ‘The Baffled Knight’, the generic name used by F.J. Child and other folk song scholars. It is extremely unlikely that James Beale would have recognised this name, particularly as, in common with other versions collected from oral tradition, the male protagonist is not a knight, but a shepherd’s son. He more likely called the song ‘Stroll away the morning dew’.

In her collection The Crystal Spring, Maud Karpeles called the song ‘Blow away the morning dew’, having replaced “Stroll away…” in the chorus with the more usual “Blow away…”. She also omitted James Beale’s final verse, replacing it with the somewhat less problematic

My father’s got a flower,
It’s called Marigold;
And if you will not when you can
You shall not when you would.

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