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

Lucy Grahame, née Rayden, 1832-1912

Mrs Lucy Grahame, of 3 Markwick Terrace, St Leonard’s on Sea, Sussex, corresponded with Lucy Broadwood in April and May 1904. She sent Miss Broadwood words and music for four songs, three of which were subsequently included in the Journal of the Folk-Song Society. These songs had been learned from the daughters of a Kentish squire, “the last of whom died in 1865 at an advanced age”.

See the following records in the VWML Archive Catalogue:

• Envelope entitled ‘F.S.S. [Folk Song Society] Kent. Mrs Grahame [Lucy Grahame]’ (LEB/5/177)
• Letter from Lucy Grahame to Lucy Broadwood (16 May 1904) re writing out song tunes Grahame remembers from childhood, comparison of ‘Lord Thomas and Fair Annet’ and ‘Lord Thomas and Fair Eleanor’, possibility of meeting Broadwood in person and song relating to ‘Gods and Godesses’ (LEB/5/183)
• Letter from Lucy Grahame to Lucy Broadwood (23 Apr 1904) re sending Broadwood four songs Grahame remembers from childhood, spreading the word about the Folk Song Society and ‘Lord Thomas and Fair Annet’ written out by Grahame’s niece (LEB/5/184)

Baptised Lucy Rayden in Deptford – then part of Kent – on 15^th August 1832, her father William Harris Rayden was a merchant (a “Sworn broker ships & insurance”, according to the 1851 census), and the family lived at Blackheath Hill, Greenwich. Clearly the family was well to do: at the time of the 1871 census, Lucy was living with her three sisters at Wellington Square, St Mary in the Castle, Hastings – and all were listed as living on “income from interest on money”.

Lucy married a Scottish merchant, William Smellie Grahame, at St Leonard’s on Sea in 1877. William was nearly 20 years older than his bride. They set up house in Richmond upon Thames, but at some point following his death in 1894, Lucy moved back to St Leonards. She died at the age of 78, in 1912.

Songs

• Barbara Allen (Roud 54)
• The Iron Peel (Roud 2117)
• The Yarmouth Ditty (Roud 187)
• Lord Thomas and Fair Eleanor (Roud 4)

Samuel Willett, 1831-1902

Sam Willett was born at Fulking in Sussex in 1831. When he left the Free School at Henfield, his father Edward – who worked as a shoemaker and grocer at Edburton – taught him bootmaking, but he subsequently learned the craft of baking, and was set up as the village baker in Cuckfield probably by the mid-1850s¹; at the time of the 1861 census his occupation was given as “Baker…employing 1 boy”.

His obituary in the Mid-Sussex Times, 10^th June 1902, gave this account:

Not caring much for cobbling Mr Willett went to Ditchling to learn baking. After a time, owing to his health breaking down, he had to return home. His ability to write music becoming known to the late Mr. Ambrose Dumsday, Bandmaster of the Cuckfield Old Band, he invited him to join the Band, which he did, and played the tenor trombone. This was in 1850.

The Band was composed of eight members, and they practised once a week at what was then known as the Talbot Tap. Finding the walk from Fulking to Cuckfield too long and tiring a journey [10 miles each way, a 3 hour walk], Mr. Willett had serious thoughts of leaving the Band. Mr Dumsday [also landlord of the Talbot], loathe to lose his services, looked about to see if he could get him something to do in Cuckfield, the result being that Mr Willett took over the baker’s business carried on by a man named Taylor, and by sheer hard work and perseverance got a good deal of patronage.²

As well as the trombone, Sam Willett played the cello in the church band, and was well known as a fiddler for local dances. He came to the attention of Lucy Broadwood, and after she sent him a copy of her father’s Sussex Songs in 1890, he supplied her with over 30 songs. One of these was ‘John Appleby’, which he had heard sung by Kentish hop-pickers.

Sam Willett died at Cuckfield on 5^th June 1902, at the age of 71.

1. When Willett’s bakery was auctioned after his death, the advertisement referred to an “Old-
   established baking & corn business carried on by the Deceased for upwards of 45 years”.
   Mid Sussex Times, 15 July 1902, p4. ↩︎
2. Quoted from Andy Revell and Malcolm Davison, Cuckfield Connections, 1902: Cuckfield Baker Samuel Willett – music, smugglers and dishonest nightwatchmen https://www.cuckfieldconnections.org.uk/post/1902-cuckfield-baker-samuel-willett-music-smugglers-and-dishonest-nightwatchmen ↩︎