Susannes Folksong-Notizen
[1967:] This ballad was found among a collection of papers relating to a Lancaster strike in
1844. It seems to be the work of a collier named William Hornsby. (Reprint Sing Out 10,
230)
[1967:] A good proportion [of industrial folk songs], including some of the hardest-hitting,
are humorously put and go to lively tunes. Such masterpieces as The coal-owner and the
pitman's wife wear a smile that shows strong teeth. (Lloyd, England 310)
Dialogue, an important procedure in old folk balladry, takes on a new and specifically
didactic character in the workers' folk songs. Well, not so new, perhaps. The early religious
ballads, such as The devil's nine questions [...] had been using dialogue to point a moral for
several centuries; but now the teaching was political. [...] In using a classical ballad form,
the pitman-songmaker was not inspired by a romantic wish to revive the beauties of past
folk song. In fact, no doubt involuntarily, his ballad emerges rather as a witty caricature of
the lyric of former times. The tune belongs to the great family of Henry Martin and a score of
ballads with 'derrydown' refrain. [The song] has entered on a lively second existence since a
miner at Whiston, Lancs, unearthed it in 1951. (Lloyd, England 322f)
[1974:] According to Mr J.S. Bell of Whiston, Lancs., who sent most of these words to be
published in 'Coal', this song was probably composed by a Shotton Moor collier, William
Hornsby by name, during the great Durham strike of 1844. The tune came from Mr. J.
Denison of Walker. The 'derry down' chorus indicates its antiquity - a relative of Henry
Martin? Most songs with a 'derry down' refrain used to be fairly salacious, and it has been
suggested that the words, now nonsense, originally had a sexual connotation. (Dallas,Toil
224)
[1975:] This [...] was one of the many songs to emerge from the bitter twenty-week strike of
1844 in the North-East. Many of them were composed by Primitive Methodists and
members of other dissenting sects who also belonged to the miners' union. Song sheets,
usually sold for a penny each, as well as being a source of much-needed money were also
a means whereby the men's case could be put to the general public.
The pitman's wife mentions in the last verse [not included above] that she has been turned
out of her home. This is a reference to the mass evictions made by Lord Londonderry and
other coalowners. They threw strikers and their families out of their homes to make way for
blacklegs. As a result, numerous roadside encampments sprang up. Putting a few blankets
as a roof above their modest pieces of furniture, the evicted families tried in vain to keep out
the cold and rain. Songs like this, however, did help to bolster morale. (Notes 'The Bonnie
Pit Laddie')
[1979:] In earlier, pre-industrial songs the woman or man who outwitted the devil, or went
down to hell and managed to come back again, distinguished themselves as the bravest of
the brave. By the mid-nineteenth century where this song takes up the theme, it was a toss-
up whether the coalowner wasn't at least as formidable an enemy as any devil. [...] Under
assault, both in the home as miners' wives and as coalworkers themselves, women not only
fought a double battle, but weighed in as songwriters too. Many of the ballad sheets of
strike and resistance in the 1830s and 1840s bear the names of women songwriters, sisters
of this pitman's wife for sure. (Henderson/Armstrong 165)
See also http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=35161#479787
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