No. 41: Porter - a Cotswold printer1

The progress of those printers who worked at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is not particularly well-documented.  Often, in censuses and in notices of marriage,death and burial, whilst there are tantalising glimpses of possible lives and, occasionally, these lives begin to help unravel the less than straightforward world of practice in the issue of ballads, there are some characters who are just out of focus.  In trying to trace the fortunes of one printer it is sometimes the case that the most of clarifying detail comes from the lives of other printers for whom the same lack of supportive material obtains.  This happens time and again - as will be seen in discussion below where the same names crop up issuing the same ballads.  The present enquiry is an attempt to situate Porter amongst his contemporaries, consolidating the few known details of his life and practice; and, further, to try to confirm historical dating of ballads as far as is possible and through various comparisons and contrasts to illustrate something of the kinds that Porter and others issued.  All this inevitably involves a certain amount of speculation and there are, as might be expected, loose ends.  Several peripheral areas of enquiry surface and this has resulted in the addition, sometimes, of quite extensive footnotes, hopefully not too tedious in nature.  This might be a way of indicating areas of study for other researchers.

To begin with, we note that Thomas Smith Porter takes his place in a panorama amongst numbers of ballad-printers from a geographical area that, even stretching the parameters a little, we may designate as 'Cotswolds' (sometimes spoken of in the vernacular as 'Cotsall'), these printers and their domiciles ranging from Ricketts in Highworth, near to Swindon, via Willey in Cheltenham right over to Chilcot in Leominster and to the Ledbury printers Gibbs and Ward.  Porter himself is known to have worked out of Cirencester and the general roll-call includes Clift in the same town- with a substantial body of ballads available to us in the Madden collection.  However, as one amongst Clift's hardly known Cirencester neighbours, Shipway, Turner, and Shatford, Porter's life-history needs substantiation - and, indeed, another printer who might be usefully included in this latter group is Bence, one or two of whose ballads do appear in the Madden collection, who worked out of Wotton under Edge where Porter is found after a move from Cirencester.2

The likeliest confirmation of a birth-date for Porter is around 1787-9 ...  There is a baptismal record for Thomas and for a brother, Alexander, in Abenhall, Gloucestershire, dating from 1801.  The father's name is given as Jasper Porter and the mother's as Ann Smith which accounts for Thomas Smith Porter's slightly unusual middle name.  The ages of the boys are given as 14 for Thomas and 12 for Alexander.  There is, later, a marriage entry for a Thomas Smith Porter and an Elizabeth Holder, dated 6th September 1813, the marriage having taken place in Westbury on Severn, Elizabeth's home town.  On the marriage certificate Porter is listed as a bachelor residing in the 'Cottage Precincts' within the city of Gloucester.

There was certainly then a change of circumstances.  The births of children are recorded.  First came Alexander, actually born on 8th December 1814 and then baptised on 22nd January 1815 in Cirencester.  The date of Alexander's birth immediately suggests that the known 1815 date for Porter activity in Cirencester as described below can (just) be put back in time a little and, what is more, Porter 's occupation in amongst details of Alexander's baptism is already being given as 'printer'.  Louisa was born on 5th February 1817 and baptised on 15th March 1817 in Cirencester - Porter's occupation being given on this occasion as 'Stationer'.  Finally, there is Ellen, baptised on 25th August 1819 in Wotton under Edge (there is an address of 'Longstreet').  No date of birth is available.  In this particular record, despite the father's name being given as William Smith Porter, his occupation is given as 'Printer and Stationer' and it looks very much as if we can say that two and two make four.

These scraps and what follows establish the outline of Porter's life and there is reasonably useful evidence of a printing career.  The British Book Trade Index (BBTI), for instance, locates Porter as bookseller, printer, bookbinder and stationer, a comprehensive portfolio suggesting an established business; and this confirms the scraps set out above: Porter is seen to have worked out of Cirencester between 1815 and 1816 and then for another year, 1818-1819, in Wotton under Edge.  There is also a paper read to the Cirencester Naturalists' and Archaeological Society by Herbert E Norris in Cirencester in 1912 (reported in the Wilts and Gloucester Standard 16th March of that year) offering the information that Porter had premises in Castle Street, Cirencester, 'opposite the Swan Inn' during 1815 and 1816.  A 'magazine', The Gleaner or Cirencester Weekly, was cited as having come from Porter during 1816 and turns out to have had precisely a year's output.  Porter claimed his weekly paper as the first to have appeared in Cirencester and that this was:

a reproach to so considerable a town as Cirencester, the residence of opulence, respectability, and independence, that hitherto it has never given birth to any periodical work which it can so amply support.

Online references give the information that in 1815 Porter had 'printed and published' a collection entitled 'The Gloucestershire garland' with its wonderfully fulsome sub-title:

...  being a selection of poetic flowers, carefully culled from the choicest plants of Parnassus: together with a few indigenous sprigs: the whole forming a variegated and fragrant bouquet of beauty.

There is also a reference in the Norris article to a 'rare' ballad in the Bingham Library (then in Cirencester), Verses on the Illumination, that Norris thought was written by a Sarah Browning, on the occasion of the battle of Waterloo.  The identity of Sarah Browning has not been discovered nor have the 'Verses ...' themselves been found.  The contents of the Bingham Library were removed to the Gloucestershire County Archives and nothing further about Porter or his output has been gleaned from that Gloucester source.

The Norris article went on to indicate that, somewhat bizarrely perhaps, at one stage Porter was a 'vendor of horse medicines', yet which, together with the references to the collected verse and to the magazine, actually shows that Porter conformed, to an extent, to a regular printer profile, and was involved in more than one simultaneous enterprise.  This matter has been discussed previously in this series.  There is one other detail, found on Porter copy of Light Bob (see further below), which indicates that the ballad was issued from 'Porter's Warehouse' in Cirencester (my italics), thus supporting the idea of a business that was not necessarily limited to printing - as we might expect with that designation as 'Stationer' already noted.  The conjunction of the two descriptions 'Printer' and 'Stationer' might also suggest that the terms were interchangeable.  It brings to mind the designation on Pitts ballads: 'Toy and Marble Warehouse'.

Part of Porter's working life can, then, be firmly established in Cirencester.  To add to this, there is also a reference in the Gloucestershire Quarter Sessions Archives to the effect that Porter had done the legal deed and applied to a clerk of the peace for a certificate signifying his intention to use a printing press and had received a certificate for that purpose - in Wotton in 1818.  But, apart from the details that have been set out above, there is nothing else either from Cirencester or from Wotton that would fill out the picture of Porter's domicile nor of any part of his working life including his activities as printer of ballads.  The dates of the cessation of his working activity and of his death have not yet been uncovered.3

We are left with a small crop of ballads in the Madden collection that were evidently unknown to or ignored by Norris.  The full list is as follows:

Nobody Coming to bury me ... Roud number V20514

Light Bob V3554

Song No Roud number

A Wife Well Managed V30897

The Country Lass 606

The Mouth of the Nile V9205

The Belfast Shoemaker 982

The Ways of the World V12208

The Cries of the Nation V2197

Dolly Duggins V4887

The Drowsy Sleeper 402

Lawyer Sly V6031

The Pleasures of Matrimony 21420

The Triumph of Freedom V1308

The Waterloo Wedding V554

There is one more Porter ballad entitled And All His Thoughts are Fix'd on Home - with a first line of 'When storms disturb old ocean's bed ...' in a Baring-Gould collection; but it has not been possible to look at it.

***

We can make further inroads by looking, firstly, at those ballads that can be linked to historical events, useful because this reflects a time before which the particular piece could not have been issued but that do give us a focus, as in the present case, on a time when Porter was working.  Thus, The Waterloo Wedding is a good example where at least a starting-date for enquiry is offered that sits within the period that Norris described.  The piece turns out to be of the same order as a number of other texts such as The Plains of Waterloo - and, as does that ballad, features a returned lover, 'a valiant man', and where the climax of the narrative emerges thus:

Oh! then this youthful lady she flew into his arms,
With such joy and pleasure she did embrace his charms,
He said I am your true-love, your valiant Oxford Blue,
I have escaped all danger from the fields of Waterloo.

Here we have a ballad that is not about Waterloo itself but is a lyric composition on a theme involving a successful love affair that appears in many a guise in ballad-printing history.

Several printers appear to have put out the same or very similar copy of The Waterloo Wedding more or less at the same time, thus circumscribing the time during which the particular ballad appears to have achieved its greatest popularity.  Thomas Stevens Storer in Bristol printed the piece and there is support for his printing activity in the English Short Title Catalogue which indicates that he had issued The apprehending and taking of Phoebe Cluer, on suspicion of the murder of her child from 'No.4 Narrow Wine St., Bristol' and, in the same source, as another marker, The Gosport Tragedy, from the same address although the ESTC often includes question marks along with its datings, as with the given date here - 'c.1800?'.  Storer also issued England's Glory, a panegyric to the British sailor consequent upon the defeats of Napoleon's armies and fleet at Aboukir Bay (1798).  A British Book Trade Index reference has Storer working in 1809.  With his printing of The Waterloo Wedding we can extend his operative period to a time around 1815 and all this detail suggests that he, like Porter, is very much an 'early' printer.6

We can also confirm the general date of issue of The Waterloo Wedding by citing Sarah Taylor copy.  She was printing ballads in Birmingham between 1807 and 1818, thus, in her case, giving us a narrow three years upon which to exercise conjecture.7

Then the trail meanders a trifle.  Richard Hook, printer, in Brighton, issued the piece and, according to the Roud broadside index, he also issued a catalogue of songs dated between c.1820 and 1824.8  It looks as if his copy of The Waterloo Wedding appeared in retrospective manner and, certainly, that an extended time for the general issue of the ballad could be edged forward a little.  This same momentum also involved James Rosson in Middlewich who, working between 1822-1828, printed the piece more than once with certain misprints that had appeared in initial copy corrected.9  The life of the piece - in a way not entirely helpfully for our dating of Porter - can be seen to have been gradually prolonged.

In this respect, there is copy from J Cooper in Newcastle-under Lyme but nothing conclusive has emerged that illuminates his life and work except that the piece was actually printed for him and not by him.  There are a few more such 'Cooper' ballads in the Bodleian archives - for instance, General Wolf (sic) together with How deep in love am I; and The Rosy Morn.  The Cooper in question looks to be a printer operating during the early part of the nineteenth century at a time commensurate with the emergence of Porter.  This idea emerges in a curious detail in the Bodleian archive of Ballads Online.  Cooper's The Waterloo Wedding and its companion piece, The Rosy Morn (a different copy to the one noted above), were located on the back of a paper 'wrapped for pins'.  The curiosity becomes something slightly more substantial when we find that a Midlands Directory has a J Cooper as 'Pin maker and dealer in small wares' living in Church Lane, Newcastle-under-Lyme.  There, tantalisingly, the Cooper matter rests.10

Shipway in Cirencester, another printer who issued The Waterloo Wedding, is pertinent on account of his location but the only other morsel of information about Shipway found so far is that he printed a ballad on the execution in Warwickshire of three men, Warner, Ward and Williams, the execution taking place in 1818; this printing subject to the normal strictures that applied to all execution balladry as noted above.  The 1818 date is clearly relevant to Porter's case and the two ballads cited here give the impression that Shipway had a well-founded business.11

Finally, there is Collard in Bristol.  Continuity in Collard's working life is unclear to us.  References in the British Book Trade Index have him working between 1818 and 1831 in 'Bridewell-Lane' and 'Hotwell-Road' in Bristol; but also in 'Hotwells rd' and 'St James' back' between 1842 and 1847.  The first set of addresses is that found on many of his ballad-printings as they appear in the Madden collection (the actual form of address is that given here, or as 'Bristol and Hotwells'); and he did print The famous 18-verse song of The Battle of Waterloo which, at least, supports a time of issue for his copy of The Waterloo Wedding.12

In the case of Porter, crucially, we see that his was a retrospective issue since the address given on copy is that of Wotton and this brings into focus a period after 1818.  Overall, we can see that the piece was popular during the late 1810s and beyond; and, perhaps, that Porter may have followed precedent.

There is a second historical ballad entitled The Mouth of the Nile that also came out retrospectively and the designation on Porter copy is interesting in that the address is given as 'Wotton-under-Edge & Cirencester', as if the printer was working out of two premises.  This could offer us the prospect of a change of address or, at least, the opening of business in Wotton in 1817.

The text is clearly centred on the naval battle at Aboukir Bay and begins:

It was in the forenoon of the first day of August,
One thousand seven hundred and ninety eight,
After a long pursuit we overtook the Toulon fleet,
And soon we let them know we came for a fight.

 Rule britannia shall be sung in country and town,
While our sailors hand in hand round their cans do sing,
Bonaparte got the pledge of all Europe for his wags,
And he'll ne'er forget brave Nelson at the mouth of the Nile.

Rule Britannia shall be sung in country and in town,
Our sailors, hand in hand, round the can doth sing,
Buonaparte got the pledge of all Egypt for his wage,
But he never will forget bold Nelson at the mouth of the Nile.

There are such changes in detail in various copy over time ...  Pitts, printing from his first address between 1802 and 1819, has 'round their cans do sing' but both he in other copy from his second address after 1819 and Catnach manage 'canns'.  Wood in Liverpool has 'round their cans do sing' ...  Dickinson in York has 'around'.  Pitts sticks to 'Bonaparte' and 'wage'.  Catnach has 'Buonaparte' and 'wages'.

But to complete the list of printers who issued the piece, we can add copy found in the output of Batchelar, essentially a camp-follower of Catnach; from Hillat and Martin in London, for whom BBTI gives a reference to 1839 - though there is a substantial output from the two printers that must indicate that their joint career was more extensive than this; and from Such who had the same sort of textual changes as those mentioned above - for instance, in the penultimate line as set out above where Such had 'wages'.  Essentially, the narrative is the same - as it is in later copy from Cadman in Manchester and from Harkness.  All the printers in this extended list bar Catnach whose operative times overlap those of Porter have trading dates at some time after Porter.  Similarly - as pointed out before - Armstrong copy appeared between 1820 and 1824 and copy from Dickinson between 1823 and 1834.  It looks as though it was George Wood who printed from Liverpool.  There are also unattributed copies of the ballad in the Bodleian archive and references in the Roud index to the Crampton and Baring-Gould collections; and the piece appeared in Catnach's 1832 list and that of Pitts in 1836.  Whilst there does not appear to be any record in Songsters, there is copy in Ashton's Real Sailor Songs as late as 1891 and it is obvious that the ballad had a prolonged life.  However, it does seem to have emerged early in the nineteenth century judging on the appearance of copy from Pitts and Porter (and, perhaps, Catnach).  The title also appears in Collard's 1837 list which must indicate that the ballad was printed by him at an earlier time.  Porter, in all this, can be seen to have been shrewd enough to pick up on current popularity of the piece, however his sometimes ragged detail appeared.  In every case, though, issue of the piece is always retrospective, not put out in the excitement of the moment.13

There is also a third 'historical' ballad from Porter - entitled SONG that, despite its loose title, is very much about an event.  It opens as follows:

ON the wild plains of Egypt, by ancients I am told,
Great battles have been fought by the Grecians of old,
But read and look over the Books of Great Fame,
There's none to compare to a bold British name.

When our army in Egypt so bold did advance,
In spite of Moreau or his grand army of France ...

On the Eighth day of March, Eight Hundred and One,
We landed our troops by the roaring of guns ... 

The piece attempts to evoke the feats of arms of General Sir Ralph Abercrombie (born in 1734) who died of wounds received in the battle (1801), as a subsequent stanza tells us; and, in a telescoped version of events we also learn of the endeavours of Sir Sidney Smith (1764-1840), a colourful if somewhat rash character, who achieved particular fame at the siege of Acre in 1799.

The ballad continues:

'Come fill up your glasses' and 'drink to the health' of
... bold Hutchinson, assisted by Oaker,
For these French dogs we'll not have their jokes. 

The Porter dates that we have, however, absolutely confirm the retrospective nature of his printing of the ballad.  He was working in Cirencester - well after the date of the event in 1801 but before 1818 and his move to Wotton.  It might even be suggested that there was no excuse for the errors ...  Importantly, this appears to be the only extant issue.

There is a better-known piece, Death of Abercrombie, written by Thomas Dibdin (1771-1841) - 'TWAS on the spot in ancient lore oft nam'd ...' - and put to music by John Braham (1777-1856).  This was printed by Pitts (after 1819), Jennings, Walker in Norwich and Stark in Gainsborough.  Pitts also issued another Thomas Dibdin and Braham ballad on the events beginning 'Come all you gallant generals Britannia now may boast ...' and this, too, came from his second address after 1819.  R Evans in Chester issued a ballad entitled Abercrombie's Glory.  The printer was likely to have been Richard H; Evans, printer and stationer of Foregate Street in Chester between 1823 and 1832, and who died in 1833 (BBTI).

It is still notable, in the flurry of Abercrombie pieces to appear, that there are a number of early printers involved; and we should add that attention to the subject-matter looks to have been prolonged into the 1820s.  The Dibdin piece also appeared in Songsters at an early time and this life-span took in the mid-century after which there is no sign of either the particular ballads or of the particular subject-matter.15

***

Apart from the ballads discussed above that involve specifically dated events and given the intervals between each event and Porter printings, we can bring into focus other ballads of his that have a historical context, even if it is not precisely defined or dated.  First off, we can cite The Belfast Shoemaker.  The emergence of the ballad in nineteenth century repertoire, interestingly and quite significantly, includes a profile amongst Scottish printers - Buchan in Peterhead; Randall in Stirling; and Robertson in Glasgow, in connection with whom a date of 1807 for issue of the ballad is given in reference.  This Scottish aspect of ballad issue would be well worth pursuing even if there is no obviously tangible connection between Scottish and English printers - possible progenitors, so to speak, and camp-followers.  Scottish printings, as has been seen the case with Abercrombie ballads, do crop up before English ones in several instances.  Sometimes such Scottish presence is identified only by references but their existence and the dates of the printers involved are valid enough - here, in the case of Robertson, as an important factor in the present discussion, suggesting early printing of the particular ballad in a particular form.  Other Scottish printings of various ballads under review are noted below in text.16

The Porter version concerns 'a rambling shoemaker' from Belfast who enlisted, to his 'sad misfortune' - in fact, he was drunk at the time.  He had 'a loving sweetheart', named Jane Wilson who 'griev'd' to see him go.  The train 'march'd to Tipperary'.  But on a wet and dark night 'I took my liberty', fleeing into the North but, strangely for geographical nicety, resting 'in the Forth'.  This latter reference is a strange one and can only be otherwise associated with the 1798 Irish insurrection during which fighting took place in the Forth, a barony (geographical and administrative area) outside Wexford town.  Its 'position' in the ballad becomes more clear, as will be seen.

At length, the train caught up with the shoemaker and:

Seven of the Light Horse came for to guard me,
Up in the Chapel Yard, punish'd for to be ...

Further,

There's one call'd Captain Carry, and ho, but he was
                                                                mean,
For the sake of twenty shillings he got me basely
                                                                taken ... 

Jump'd out of the window, and knock'd ten of themselves
                                                                down,
The Train of Artillery they soon followed me,
A friend I met did me assist, and gain'd my liberty.

Pigott copy, for instance,has an address on it as '60 Old St'.  BTTI references have George Pigott in 'Old St Rd' with a date of 1805 and then Charles Pigott at 52 Compton St, Clerkenwell in 1825 and Perry Pigott at the same address between 1821 and 1829.  There seems little doubt that it is the first-named who issued The Belfast Shoemaker.  The Bodleian has a goodly selection of Pigott printings from the same address, several of which, as it happens and as will be confirmed below, mirror the Porter corpus with maids bewailing the loss of their sweethearts and with some amused 'country' pieces, such as Doctor Brown, The Barley Raking and The Bold Cobler - all with the same address, although it is frequently couched in a slightly different ways on copy: 'Old Street', '60 Old Street', 'Pigott, Old Street' and 'old-street'.

John Jennings printed his ballad from 13 Water-lane, Fleet Street, London between 1802 and 1809 (details of Jennings' career have already been noted) and this supports the idea of a general period during which the ballad appeared in England though Porter is not yet in the frame.

Hurd's copy was issued from 'Shaston' (the alternative name for 'Shaftesbury' in Dorset) and there is increasing evidence that the period of issue for Hurd ballads can be dated to the second decade and the earliest years of the 1820s of the new century.  Hurd copy of the ballad shows one or two changes compared to how it appeared in Porter's hands and in the hands of Pigott and Jennings.  There is no Light Horse, for instance; and (it is a fairly obvious change) the name 'Carry' in Porter appears as 'Cary'.

Pitts copy begins with the line commensurate to that of Porter - 'I am a bold shoemaker, from Belfast town I came'.  It was printed from Pitts' first address between 1802 and 1819, thus encapsulating Porter's working life as ballad-printer and, possibly, even pre-dating Porter issue.17

Subsequently, Birt (printing between 1833 and 1841), Such and Harkness extended the life of the ballad, the latter two in decidedly different terms to how Porter printed the piece.  Whilst the overall narrative proceeds in much the same manner as found generally in copy of the ballad, Such begins with:

Come all you true-born Irishman, and listen unto me
I'm a bold shoemaker, from Belfast town I came ...

Given that a single narrative impulse is generally adhered to amongst printers even when details begin to differ with the passing of time and accretions occur, it is possible to consolidate intimations of the date of the emergence of the piece into the public glare by taking up certain points of detail on copy and then making one or two leaps of the imagination.  Thus, there is a history attached to the reference to 'Blues'.  A Royal Warrant had been issued for the raising of a regiment in the new regular army in 1661 and the regiment acquired the nickname 'Royal Blues' on account of its blue uniform.  It became the 'Royal Horse Guards, Blues' in 1750 and, eventually, amalgamated to form the 'Blues and Royals'.  After lengthy service abroad during the later eighteenth century the regiment had stayed put in the UK between 1796 and 1812.  Following Wellington's appointment as colonel the 'Blues' fought at Vittoria (1813) and at Waterloo.  Yet there is no sign in the history of the particular regiment of any association with Ireland that appears in the ballad under review - more specifically Belfast or Tipperary or even Wexford - and we can only surmise that this is a printer's speculative insertion - or an oral contribution,true enough to the inconsistency in general ballad-printing habits.

Essentially, the regiment - the 'Blues' - was prominent during the later eighteenth century and the Napoleonic wars and could be found on home ground before 1812.  There seems to have been a gap between this period and that during which Porter took inspiration, joining in the apparent first consensus of issue of the ballad during the second decade of the nineteenth century.  Again, then, in sum, knowing when Porter printed out of his two addresses, the conclusion is very much in support for the printing dates given by Norris as noted earlier in this piece.19

There is a similar situation as regards the Porter printing of Light Bob.  This piece can also be found as copy without imprint; and, importantly, in Collard's 1837 list.  There is no sign of Collard copy in the Madden collection nor in the Bodleian archives but the 1837 reference presents us with the notion of copy being issued before that time and, given the evidence, already canvassed, that ballads came out of Collard's activities in Bristol between 1818 and 1831, this may well have also been the time when he issued Light Bob.  The dates are, admittedly, rather unhelpful as detail apropos the emergence of Porter as printer but Porter's own issue is particularly noteworthy in such a sparse showing and might even suggest a printer who, as in the case of SONG, has an independent streak.  Porter's Light Bob came from his location in Cirencester which sets its appearance somewhere around 1815-1816 as the initial dating set out above indicated and before 1818 (or slightly earlier) after which he moved premises to Wotton.  This may allow us a view of a period for general, if limited, issue of the piece at the end of the 1810s - and this is a time in which we might place Collard copy.

Whether or not one could include the unattributed copy within these parameters is still an open question.  The piece uses the long 'S' which might just suggest an early issue but this is not necessarily a guaranteed sign as noted above in connection with a Pitts printing, The Baker's Courtship, which appeared after 1819 (and is further referred to in footnote 26 here).  There is nothing else to help: no address, for instance.

Nor is there any sign of the ballad later - although there is always the possibility that copy from other printers has not yet been located.  That said, as was the case with Belfast Shoemaker, it is to internal detail that we must now turn for a morsel of enlightenment.20

The ballad concerns a lamenting maiden, familiar from much similar balladry, and a chorus sums up her dilemma:

I know not how I shall get married, ah! No not I,
For my heart is quite uneasy since my Light Bob went away.

'Light Bobs', we find, was the nickname of the British Army's Light Infantry.21  The particular regiment was raised in 1755 as the 54th Regiment of Foot.  In 1781 a regional title, 52nd Oxfordshire Regiment of Foot, was bestowed, and in 1803 the regiment became the first to be designated 'Light Infantry'.  The 'explanation' of 'Light' would seem to be clear enough; and 'Bobs' looks to have derived from the adoption (1777) of short, cropped hair - 'bobbed' - during the American Wars of Independence.

'Light Bobs', at any rate, retained a red coat despite other such 'light' regiments wearing green as a uniform colour and, as well as fighting in the American Wars of Independence, saw service also in India and during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars - which, in effect, brings the story up to date and within Porter's ken.

In the ballad it is probably of relatively minor significance that the nickname was evoked except as a contemporary reference or one of an exotic nature.  Clearly enough, the term 'Light Bob' is but a peg on which to hang the narrative.  We are not looking at a ballad based on a single event.  The narrative, then, is of a similar sort to that of The Waterloo Wedding.  What we glimpse is a historical background dating from the late eighteenth century and inclusive of the period of the Napoleonic wars and this could be said to embrace Porter's perception of both the nature and effect of balladry and of the world round him, particularly in the possibilities of commercial exploitation of events and characteristics.

As summation - whilst the piece might seem to be fairly inconsequential in itself, it can be taken along with The Waterloo Wedding, The Mouth of the Nile, SONG and The Belfast Shoemaker to offer degrees of detail that, at the least, help confirm the dating of Porter's activities.  Together, the five ballads discussed above set Porter firmly in historical time for which the known references, those of Norris, in particular, can serve as indicators.

There is another ballad that could be said to be historically-based.  The Cries of the Nation, working a well-worn theme, is a piece that appears as issue from Porter, Bloomer in Birmingham, Walker in Norwich and Collard through his ubiquitous list; and, when the respective dates of activity amongst the printers are computed, this indicates that the ballad could have come out at the end of the 1810s and may even tilt the balance of issue in favour of the 1820s.  Bloomer worked between 1817 and 1827.  Walker, even further removed,printed his piece at some stage between 1820 and 1827.  Collard's dates remain uncertain although, based on the cache of Collard ballads printed between 1818 and 1831the consensus is likely to be that this was the period during which he issued The Cries of the Nation.  As a long shot, it may be that this small nexus does provide us with a possible notion that Porter did print in the earliest part of the 1820s.  However, once again it has to be said that we have no evidence that Porter was printing ballads at that time.22

The piece offers a cumbersome amalgam of general comment and fragments of detail, beginning with a general plea:

GENTLEMEN, give attention to my Song,
I hope its not offensive to my country or king,
In concerning the times you very well know,
It makes many high heads to poverty bow.

CHORUS

O the cries of the nation are shocking to hear,
There's nothing but Poverty everywhere.

It is necessary to be careful with pieces such as this one.  There is evidence that the same sorts of complaints that are to be found in this particular ballad also figure in pieces that appeared at quite different times.  In fact, any number of expanded concerns can be found as time passed and in this progression there are ballads about general poverty and about the fortunes of individual trades - the plight of weavers, for instance, as factories displaced cottage industry work.23

In the Porter ballad, after the detail noted above,poverty is expressed in a particular manner that is demarcated.  Thus:

The poor farmers ... they make this reply,
They cannot pay their rents, it is so hard on them
                                                                doth lay,
Imposed with Corn Laws and Assessments,
Poverty runs so hard that thousands to America
                                                are obliged for to go ...

But:

The tradesman and labourer their case is so bad
Thousands out of employ no work to be had,
In a starving condition they wander to & fro,
Before they submit to a workhouse to go ...

Poor working men nearly Starved to death,
Obliged to leave their families and wander for
                                                                bread ...

The farmer took them in and gave them meat,
Being faint and weary they scarcely could eat,
Being night in the barn he made them a bed,
But early next morning he found them all dead.

This context is also indicated in another way through certain lines in the ballad that evade the immediate issue, and where the virtues of being poor are well supported and echo the same perpetual respect for and endurance of one's own poverty and virtue found in most of Porter's 'rural' ballads (as discussed below) and which are indicative of a society that appears to be stable and, ultimately, regulated through hierarchy:

The world is unequal and always will be,
Some live in Plenty and some in Poverty,
Poor men are born to be rich men's slaves,
And through hardships and hunger hurried to
                                                      the grave.

We see, too, that copy is sparse, thus once more suggesting that Porter sometimes displayed a singular cast of mind.

***

Of the rest of the Porter cache, it may safely be said that their themes are found regularly enough in other contemporary printers' stocks and, moreover, that their substance is redolent of an earlier historical age.

There are, for instance, half a dozen pieces that cast a light eye chiefly on rural society: Dolly Duggins, The Pleasures of Matrimony, A Wife well Managed, The Country Lass, Lawyer Sly, and Nobody's coming to bury me.  The first three of these pieces are also to be found in the ballad stock of Hurd who is turning out to be another 'early' printer of ballads.  The main point, where dating is concerned in this instance, is that there is no direct evidence that these pieces appeared as Porter (or Hurd) copy after the 1810s.  Other printers' contributions, as they did with ballads discussed above, do modify this position to an extent, as will be seen.  The quest here is, initially, to pinpoint Porter and his activities.

Dolly Duggins gives us a starter in the matter:

LORD what folks I see one above the other,
Such a sight to me surpasses any other,
There's Robin, Dick and Sue sitting close toge-
          ther,                                       [his father,
And Bob is come to the play and never asked
                                                        Fol de rol ...

Dolly Duggins I took to be my wife sir,
I did nought but cry she led me such a life sir,
Never after smil'd nor spent an hour in laughter
She was an angel first but prov'd a devil after.

Should Bonyparte (sic) come I'd fit him for his folly,
I should not wish him worse than wedded to
                                                                my Dolly,
She'd pull his courage down and him severely
                                                                handle,
And make him simple soon as any farthing can-
                                                                dle.

The boast apropos Bonaparte is particularly defiant.  More prosaically - but only just - the images set Dolly firmly in a context of hoped-for bucolic extravagance that is mirrored in the other Porter printings in this group of ballads.

The life of the ballad was prolonged by still other printers such as William Armstrong in Liverpool, whose working dates covered the short period between 1820 and 1824 (and for whom, be it noted, ballads were printed - the perpetrator has not yet been identified); and Armstrong has the wording as 'one above another' as opposed to Porter's 'the other' (the lines quoted above reveal this).  Armstrong also has 'and never ask'd', and 'Bonaparty'.  Three printings can be found in the Bodleian archive and the changes are typical of how different printers got to work.

Copy from Angus posits a familiar conundrum, the surname being all that is found on the larger part of Angus copy.  It does, though, seem clear enough that the person of the Angus family involved was Margaret, widow of the first Thomas Angus (who died in 1788) and mother to the second Thomas, with whom she issued some ballads, and to George, who took over the family business in 1825 and used a specific address that identifies his printings.  Margaret Angus worked between 1774 and 1825.  The Angus imprint still gives us pause for thought since it employs the long 's' that might just have implied issue even earlier than that of Porter though this is not at all an infallible sign as the case of Pitts demonstrates.  There is also a change in wording from the phrase Porter used where the Angus imprint has an almost determined 'antique' note with 'one above t'other' - but yet copy is entitled 'A New song'.  One notes the spelling of 'Bonaparte'.

Pitts got in on the act after 1819, printing from his second address and not, then, a particularly early issue.  He nevertheless employed the long 's' and the ampersand.  In this copy he also uses the wording 'th(e) ... other' - unfortunately, broken into two by the end of a line and with the 'e' printed upside down.  Pitts also has 'ask'd'; and the spelling 'Bonaparte'.  Dolly Duggins does not appear in his 1836 list which might very well suggest that the piece had its day ... and there is no clear evidence of issue of the ballad from this latter historical period at all.

Collard, mind, is turning out to be an important figure in this discussion and, as with his copy of The Waterloo Wedding, included Dolly Duggins in his 1837 list which should mean that he issued it first prior to that date although there is no extant copy in either the Madden collection or the Bodleian archives.  When we once again adopt a reverse procedure in placing the reference to Collard issue against detail of other printers and their respective copies, beginning with Porter (in the manner suggested in connection with issue of Waterloo Wedding), a particular period is brought into focus that can be located around the 1818 date attached to Collard activities in Bristol.  There is a reasonable case to be made out for his issue of the ballad at around this time- perhaps, as with Pitts, a year or so later.

It is also clear that copies with printers' names on them are sparse, a factor that in several cases discussed here may delimit issue to a short period of time.

There is one other copy - without imprint and alongside a piece entitled I'll love you no more.  There are no real clues on it that might help to suggest a period of issue in this form.  It is hard to tell if I'll love you no moreis from the same printer and this particular ballad is only found otherwise in what appear to be later copies.

Overall - given the details and deviances assembled above, it does still look as if Dolly Duggins emerged at the end of the 1810s and the beginning of the 1820s.  Such a surmise is reinforced by the Wotton address on Porter copy.26

As for The Pleasures of Matrimony, in contrast to the troublesome account of married life in Dolly Duggins, Porter copy begins:

SEVEN long years I've been a good wife,
         O blessed be the day I married ; (sic)
I never fell out with my spouse in my life,
         Although at the ale house he has tarried.

Let every Woman her husband adore,
         Learn to be contented tho' ever so poor,
And daily will Providence increase their store,
         So girls you mind this when you marry.

The list of printers includes Hurd (who also printed an 'Answer'), Catnach, printing from 1813 on and Pitts, issuing his copy after 1819.  Collard printed the piece and the same suggestions for his involvement as given above obtain here, the address on copy given as 'BRIDEWELL-LANE' and 'HOTWELL-ROAD' - after 1818, then.  Walker in Norwich printed it in the 1820s but before 1827 since his address on copy, at Duke's Palace in Norwich, changed around that point in time, the circumstances surrounding this change having been discussed already.  Porter, in this list, must be accorded 'early' status.

Then there are Williams in Portsea, a printer whose career flourished during the 1830s and 1840s; and, in Birmingham, Thomas Aston Jackson, son of William Jackson and who was printing ballads in 1852-1853.  Neither of these two printers, in the light of the other dates given here, can be associated with the emergence of Porter.  One can add that at least the life of the piece was not suddenly curtailed.  The relative paucity of early extant issue is, once again, also a notable feature.27

A Wife Well Managed (in Porter copy) combines the complaints in Dolly Duggins and the smooth comfort of The Pleasures of Matrimony and the emphasis in text is on the wife's demands for fashionable clothes and accoutrements.  A Yorkshire farmer marries a 'buxom dame', perhaps an epithet already slipping out of circulation.  The farmer's new wife, nevertheless, presents a determined picture.  Thus:

Short waisted gowns she then must wear,
With belts across her shoulders,
With a hunting cap upon her head,
To make her look the prouder.

With her apron ty'd up to her chin,
Her lofty face did grin, O,
With a muff and tippet round her neck,
Made of badger's skin, O.

Muffs, usually made from an expensive fur such as sable, were a strong fashion accessory in 1800 but by 1811 had begun to decline in popularity.  Scarf-like 'Tippets', on the other hand, kept their place as accessory right through the new century.  In 1800 they were more usually found amongst 'gentlewomen' but they were taken up by all classes as the century progressed.  Initially they would have been made of a good-quality fur or even of swansdown.  The reference to 'badger's skin' is most likely meant to add to the touch of farce.  The material is hardly the stuff of high fashion.

As something of an aside, it is worth noting that Isabella Thorpe, in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, written during 1798-1799, revised in 1803 but not issued until 1817 (posthumously: but also a significant date in the present discussion), is involved in guessing the price and weighing the merits of a new muff and tippet.  In actuality, too, Lady Bridges, mother of Elizabeth Bridges, who married Edward Austen, Jane's brother, set out a list of bridal necessities in 1791 that included both a sable muff and a tippett and, further, issued the same list to her two other daughters.  This helps to ground both the popularity of the accessory and a period during which this was apparent and then, by association, a fashionable reason for its inclusion in the Porter ballad.28

Short-waisted gowns - those with a high waist - developed into the Empire line and it is again clear that the farmer's wife was ape-ing high fashion.  The hunting cap was probably the round animal skin variety worn by both hunters and by 'peasants' and, like badgers' skin, represents another sad fall from fashionable grace.

One cannot doubt the ridicule.

At any rate, the farmer insists on making his wife work in the dairy, milk the cows and help with the pigs.  She protests that her 'lilly white hands are slender' and that the farmer has servants to do the work.  However:

You shall my business now attend,
He said both late and early,
Or I'll take a stick and bang your hide,
As I do thrash my barley.

Pitts also produced copy of A Wife Well Managed as did Swindells and there is copy without imprint.  The Pitts copy came from his first address.  Copy without imprint carries exactly the same narrative as do the other printings.  The piece surfaced in Hurd's output which would date it to the late 1810s or, possibly, the early 1820s.  The association in time between Hurd and Porter is clear enough and a similar time-scale seems to obtain with all named copy listed here.  Issue is sparse too - a feature of several Porter printings.  At the same time the name of Swindells gives us a conundrum just as did that of Margaret Angus.  Swindells printings most often only have the surname on them and it was George who was the first in the family line, listed in BBTI at '5 Hanging Bridge', Manchester, working between 1780 and 1796 as a printer of chapbooks, and who was succeeded by Alice (his wife and widow) and his son John who then traded together as 'Swindells and Co.' However, BBTI does list Alice seperately as printing between 1790 and 1828 and on various copy the designation 'A Swindells' appears.  All in all, one would be inclined to plump for Alice as printer of A Wife Well Managed.29

Lawyer Sly is intriguing.  Porter's is the only extant copy although - yet again - the piece features in Collard's 1837 list.  It would be useful to know if there was any sharing or filching - a nigh impossible hope.  As it is Porter sets a kind of limit on speculation because there is no sign of him after his sojourn in Wotton that ended in 1819 but Collard issue could well have been early in his Hotwells ballad career, thus bringing him nearer to Porter in time.

The piece is quite unlike other Porter ballads although there is a progression of figures who might seem to sum up a layer of the same hierarchical society found in other Porter printings being discussed here.  In the course of the narrative, 'I went to live with lawyer sly' and all the 'rhino' was acquired when clients 'took the law'; but, 'of latin quite fatigued', the protagonist took up with a doctor:

Who with blisters, pill & bolus, made
                                      a mighty fuss,
Till the great physician died,
Then to cure the folks I tried,
And no doctor in the world ever
                                      made folks worse.

And when master on the stage would
                                      roar and bray
To see the people cry, why it made
                                      me laugh.

So much so that 'I tried myself'
And you never saw an elf
In such palpitation, tribulating case
                                      as me,
And I whispered in my fright,
If I once get thro' to night,
This place will be the merriest of all
                                      for me.

The Country Lass has more solidity and history to it.  It is a rather comfortable piece, redolent of a supposed rural idyll and beginning:

I am a brisk and bonny lass free from all cares and strife,
And sweetly does my hours pass for I love a country life;
At a wake or fair I am often there where pleasure's to be seen,
Though poor I am contented and as happy as a queen ... 

...  when the cattle are fed with straw,
The cock crows to make me my icy cream to thaw,
So the West and Northern winds may whistle and blow,
Its health and sweet contentment the country lass do know.

The key figure in printing is Evans - and here we have yet another dilemma emerging in a similar way to that posed by the Angus and Swindells names.  There is copy from 42 Long Lane dated July 1794.  Whilst this copy does not give us the name of the printer, it is known that John Evans was printing from this address at that time.  Another copy of the piece was printed by Evans and Howard together from 42 Long-lane and this would have been in 1805.  BBTI lists their collaboration at that date.  Confusingly in terms of clear attribution and dating, there is copy from J Evans and Sons of The Carpenter, a Hannah More piece, printed at this time, as well as The White Hat, issued from the 'Cheap Repository' in Long Lane in 1819.  It looks as if printings were being issued from both 41 and 42 Long Lane - this is the information given in the BBTI - and that the address of 'Long-lane' found on several Evans ballads actually subsumed both numbered addresses.  Whatever the case, the assembly of dates runs to include the emergence of Porter although the first-named Evans copy is a precursor by some stretch.31

And The Country Lass certainly enjoyed a degree of popularity during this period.  Jennings (as reminder - printing out of Water Lane between 1802 and 1809), and Pitts, printing the piece between 1802 and 1819 (and, it should be said, copy from his second address after 1819) make up a group of the usual suspects that also includes the less well-known Clouter, in Bristol.  The combined dates of these printings both pre-date and absorb Porter activities and form an early group - rounded off by Armstrong, working between 1820 and 1824 (we should remember that copy was printed for Armstrong and not by him).  Armstrong has a slightly different first line - 'I am a cheerful country lass' - as compared with the usual one which is 'I am a brisk and bonny lass' but there are no other significant changes.

Later printers were Annie Ryle, Pratt and Such but none of these affect any summation of the emergence of Porter since they all worked after 1836.  There are, as well, some extant copies without imprint - and copies in the Baring-Gould and Frank Kidson collections.  It would still be safe to offer the first flush of printing as the most relevant one involving Porter.32

Finally in this group: Porter printed a copy of Nobody coming to bury me ...  His piece begins:

THE dogs had ceas'd to bark,
         The silver Moon shines bright;
When in the lone Church yard,
         Stood poor Miss Bailey's spirit.

                        CHORUS.

Oh! What will become,
         Ah why did I die?
Nobody coming to bury me,
         Nobody coming to cry-y!-y!

The first time I saw Captain Smith,
         I was fair, tho' he treated me foul;
So here tete-a-tete with the Moon,
         All night will I bellow and howl;
Oh, what will become of me.

The last time I saw my deluder,
         He gave me a shabby Pound Note
But I borrowed his best leather breeches,
         To wear with my wooden surtout ... 

But hold, yet I've a comfort left,
         Delightful to most married fair,
Rather cold - and of many a joy bereft,
         Yet still I've BREECHES TO WEAR.33

But there is a second Laurie and Whittle version of the story entitled:

No rest in the grave: or The second coming of Miss Bailey's ghost.  Being a parody on "Nobody's coming to marry me" .

SECOND APPEARANCE OF MISS BAILEY'S GHOST

A Parody on the Song, called "Nobody's Coming to Marry me", written by Mr. Kertland, and sung by Mr. Jones at the theatre Royal, Dublin.

Laurie and Whittle also printed a third piece, on August 1st 1806, this time with text insisting that nobody was coming to 'marry me' (again, my italics).  Copy also proclaims that the piece was 'intended as a companion to the second appearnce of Miss Bailey's Ghost.  Just Publish'd':

Nobody's coming to marry me,
Nobody's coming to woo ... 

The printed appearance of Laurie and Whittle copy is worth remarking.  Each ballad has a substantial illustration - not just a motif or header block - and print-face is often in italics.  This style is characteristic of Laurie and Whittle in ballads that they issued around the turn of the nineteenth century.  We know this because, usefully, all Laurie and Whittle copy, as can be seen, is dated, either to a month and year or even to a specific day.  Further, legend on Laurie and Whittle copy indicates that some of their illustrations are 'engravings' (and that copy, too, is from stage productions).  BBTIgives the information that Robert Laurie and James Whittle worked together during the period between 1797 and 1818 and there are also separate entries for the two men.  The trading that Laurie was involved with was as map and chart seller, print seller, bookseller, publisher of maps and publisher of prints.  Whittle, almost likewise, traded as a seller of maps, charts and prints.  Nowhere is the word 'Printer' used.  The appearance of copy may well be the result of their main focus in selling what must have been finely detailed work.  For our purposes this may not matter in the end.  The more important factor is that Laurie and Whittle just feature within the spread of years during which we know that Porter was working and were, therefore, available for plundering or, at least, for offering ideas to be used.

Apropos of any source for Porter, apart from the Laurie and Whittle pre-existent text that might just have the connective edge, there is the possibility that Porter took his own cue straight from stage performance as it could have been experienced.

We note, too, that Evans and Howard had printed a copy of the third Laurie and Whittle text in the British Neptune or Convivial Songster (c.1805) - at this pointing enquiry seemingly representing one of the earliest entries into Songster repertoire.37

The 'marry' version was printed by Pitts and Mantz jointly as Nobody Coming to Woo and all known Pitts and Mantz copy came out between 1802 and 1819, just in time, one might say, to overlap with Porter and, it seems, at one and the same time that the Pitts and Jennings 'bury' version was printed.  The title is also included in Pitts' 1836 list.  John Marshall in Newcastle, operating at least in 1805 (BBTI), took it up- his dates of working are given variously (see footnote); and George Angus printed it, his working dates being between 1817 and 1825.  The piece also appears in copy from Swindells and, bearing in mind the appearance of the piece as printed first by Laurie and Whittle as a 'marry' version in 1804 and then its subsequent history, it seems likely that it was Alice Swindells who printed the piece during this operative period.38

In the roll-call (not every instance is recorded here), Kendrew in York printed a 'marry' version at some stage between 1803 and 1838...  an enormous swathe of time and possibly reflective of the continued popularity of the piece.  It is worth pursuing Kendrew's progress because it does allow us a view of a printer who, in part, issued some copy with very much the same historical background and social mores as pieces from Porter.  This is represented by ballads such as Dame Durden, The scolding wife and Dick's Courtship.  Equally, though, Kendrew adopted changing fashions in ballad-production that had changing circumstances as background - the first obvious instance of which might be said to have been in Bonaparte's disasters in Russia which, one would have thought, came out around 1812 - John Lump in his Glory also mentions 'Boney'.  Porter, as we have seen, followed a similar path.  But Kendrew's career, further still, embraces the printing of Dibdin pieces.  Dibdin was extremely popular as source for various printers but there is no sign of him in the Porter ballads.  Perhaps even more significantly, where Kendrew 's participation in the process of adapting material is concerned, we find later ballads such as I've been roaming ..., O' we're a noddin', nid, nid, noddin' and Follow, follow, over mountain, representing a large collection of mainly frothy stocking-fillers that sprinkle the mid-nineteenth century ballad repertoire - a phenomenon discussed briefly at the end of this article.  And there are shades in between.  Porter has none of this although this is hardly surprising considering the apparently short duration of his career.  In any case, there has to be much more to say about Kendrew who went on printing up until 1838.39

Harkness also took up the piece, printing a 'marry' version; and there is copy without imprint as well as an appearance in Songsters during the course of the nineteenth century- for instance, in Universal Songster, Volume 1, in two editions dated 1825 and 1828.  During this whole period of the life of the piece, there is also a strong Scottish presence that underlines our previous encounters: Oliver and Boyd, for instance, operating c.1810 in Edinburgh; Thomas Johnston in Falkirk at around 1813; Randall in Stirling at around the same date and just after; 'J Fraser and Co.' in Stirling,printing at around 1816; and Joseph M'Nairn in Newton Stewart, known to be in business between 1820 and 1837 and designated 'printer' in a Pigot 1825 directory.  The generally early presence is notable.40

Nonetheless, all this may be accounted somewhat peripheral.  The more pertinent information that we have is enough to offer a context for the Porter ballad-printing in which, apart from Porter (and Laurie and Whittle), only Pitts and Jennings, jointly, issued the 'bury me' version as a broadside ballad.

The piece would probably be best known now as My Father's a Hedger and Ditcher which Alfred Williams got from an informant (his title is There's Nobody Comes to Marry Me); and which was also sung in recent times by Mary Ann Carolan.  This song follows the 'marry' pattern as set out above.  The late Bruce Olson gave the information (it can be found online) that My father's a hedger and ditcher was derived from My father's a delver of dykes that was in circulation around 1725 - which puts a new perspective on the whole Laurie and Whittle involvement and on stage performances; and a copy of Hedger and Ditcher also appeared in The Union Imperial Songbook of 1815 (according to another online reference), suggesting that the form of the piece may have changed yet again.  The matter is pretty well entangled but the 'bury' image is still the key, with its small but exclusive printing group.41

As a side issue, taking the Pitts and Mantz and the Pitts and Jennings versions together, one wonders just how (even unto Porter) the tentacles of Pitts' influence spread - a general subject which is more or less taken for granted but could do with closer investigation.42

***

The three remaining pieces in the Porter output confirm most of the propositions advanced above.  The first of them, The Ways of the World, was the most extensively printed of the three and, whilst there are 'later' printers, 'early' names as found throughout this discussion continue to emerge.  Thus we find copy from Evans; and Pitts; and a title from Collard in his 1837 list.  The list includes Catnach, whose printing career began in 1813; Hoggett in Durham, printing between 1816 and 1837; Bloomer (printing ballads between 1817 and 1827) and Russell (working between 1814 and 1839) in Birmingham - all of whom can be seen to have begun their ballad careers at the same time that Porter was printing although there is no direct evidence of them having printed the particular piece at a time commensurate with that of Porter.  And then there are those printers who came even later: Wheeler in Manchester, for example, with a copy issued c.1837, and William Jackson in Birmingham, printing between 1839 and 1852-1853 before his son took over the business; Pratt, also in Birmingham (c.1850); Williams in Portsea, essentially a printer of the 1830s and 1840s; and the camp-followers of the same heyday Disley, Fortey, Such and others.  Most printers - and there are several more cited in the Roud index - have at least catalogue references if not known extant copy but none of them would parallel the emergence of Porter as one of their number, his printing being quite clearly an earlier venture in time.  In this descent in time we find James Sherring of Yeovil, one of a myriad printers who so far remain in obscurity (like Henry Hurton, noted in a recent Enthusiasms piece on this site).  The sole BBTI reference to Sherring is to 1830 and this would discount him too in respect of Porter's emergence as a ballad-printer.

We should not overlook copy from Clift in Cirencester (printing between 1824 and 1842), one of only two examples of Porter ballads appearing in Clift's stock; but the appearance of the Clift ballad would not affect any portrait we might conceive of Porter.

There are, too, copies without imprint, always difficult to account for and none standing out as offering obviously contemporaneous printings to that of Porter even if the theme is pursued in very like manner.

Several copies have the word 'Ways' altered to 'Way' in their titles: Catnach in his 1832 list, Pitts on copy, Williams too ...  Sherring and Hoggett.  One copy from Evans has a full title of Way of the World; Or, An Alteration to the Short Sketch of the Times.  Several printers offer a different ballad with the same title - Fortey and Ryle, for instance, with a piece beginning 'As you travel through life ...', quite differently to the Porter ballad; or Willey and Phillips (in Brighton) with The Fatal English Poor Law; Or, the Ways of the World.  Obviously, then, the theme was popular over a long period of time and the content of the ballad somewhat generic save, in the last two copies cited, where there is a blunt reference to the Poor Laws.43

The central figures to be associated with Porter - Evans, Catnach, Pitts and Collard - operated during the period already discussed, namely towards the end of the second decade of the nineteenth century, Pitts and Catnach, of course, quite a known way beyond too ...  Collard's career is also extensive and, as has been noted, as yet unsurveyed in detail.  But the important point - to re-iterate - is that the period of issue from these printers in its earliest phase includes Porter's activity in significant part.

The Ways of the World in Porter copy offers a prolonged complaint about life and times with a gesture to the past that is present in other Porter ballads:

It's the old rule and custom of my grandmothers days,
To look all around you and hear what folks say ...

Neighbours, too, if fortune should frown on you, speak fair enough to your face but carp behind your back:

They will backbite and slander your reputation,
And secretly rejoice when they hear of your downfall,
Fine words they sound well as the times now it goes,
You're gentleman sure if you have but fine clothes.

For all the whole world, believe me tis true,
Without you have got money there is no friend for you,
Money gets money - the rich they will thrive,
While thousands of poor they can hardly Survive.

Historical context in this is vague enough, references are non-specific and such complaints could be echoed at other times.  The piece is standard rhetorically.  But Porter must have thought the piece worth a commercial punt.  It seems that the ballad also looks back with approval on earlier days, a feature not unknown in other Porter ballads.

The same textual form and narrative is found in other known copy although there are alterations in single words and in the run of the text.  Some lines - even couplets - are compressed.  Clift copy has already been noted, worth a second look on account of the shared Cirencester background with Porter, and it paralleled Porter in essentials though certain expressions are changed or loosened - 'For 'twas the old rule & custom ...' instead of 'It's the old rule and custom ...'; 'How one half lives the other never knows ...' for 'How one half this world lives the other half never knows ...'; and 'They'll backbite ...' for 'They will backbite ...'.  There is a slight change in viewpoint now and then - 'You swagger and brag ...' instead of the more passive 'To swagger and brag ...', for example.  None of this makes a huge difference to the import of the ballad but Clift does also leave out one of Porter's nine stanzas:

Those or (sic) the observations we daily do see
In high life and low life, and in every degree,
In every rotation both strangers and friends
We are all for ourselves for to serve our own ends.

It might be further remarked that two lines in Porter text demonstrate a deflection from the gravity of the situation:

And so now you attend to my humoursome rhyme,
To see how the world goes in these new fashion times ...

So if you'll attend to my bumourous lines,
You'll see how the world goes in these fan-
              gled times ...44

Evans printed one copy as The World's Ways and whilst text is only partly visible on available copy what can be seen is commensurate with that of Porter.  An alternative Evans title has already been mentioned here.45

Overall, given the first issues of a ballad that was taken up until well on in the nineteenth century, Porter remains as an early protagonist.

The second of this group of three pieces, The Drowsy Sleeper, does not feature very strongly in ballad-printing history and there are differences in text and there is more than one title.  But the piece is one of a genre concerning frustrated lovers and, often, fathers who either banish the suitor or kill him.  The Bodleian lists some one hundred and twenty-seven examples ranging from (say) The Leicestershire Garland, printed at 'Aldermary Church Yard' in which the lovers 'both fell a bleeding facrafice' through The Yarmouth Tragedy from Evans et al; and even as a completely transformed Vilikins and his Dinah.46

The piece begins in Porter with the suitor addressing his lover, as follows:

Awake, awake, you drowsy sleeper,
Awake, awake, 'tis break of day ; (sic)
Can you sleep, my love, any longer,
Since my poor heart you've stole away.

So now, my daughter, I've depriv'd you
Of your love, whom I have now sent to sea ...

In this case, then, there is no bloody dénouement that we encounter in earlier versions of similar stories.

Evans printed the piece with a title of The Cruel Father.  Pitts copy, entitled Cruel Father; or The Maiden's Complaint, has much the same text as that of Porter but his copy uses the long 'S' (not really, as pointed out, a guide to the date of issue - but its use does not feature in Porter copy) and contains one or two different phrases.  He has, for instance, 'He'll find a cruel prefs gang for you' whilst Porter has a more straightforward 'He'll send the press-gang for you'.  Like Porter, he printed the piece in four-line stanzas.  His copy, in any case, was printed after 1819 and thus after our last glimpse of Porter.  Catnach also printed the piece with the same title as that of Pitts.  Finally, Birt had the piece as The Maiden's Complaint.48

Under the title, The Drowsy Sleeper, there is copy from Crome, who is most relevant through the possibility that he issued copy parallel in time to Porter's progress.  Crome copy (printed in one block rather than in separate stanzas) is slightly more elaborate, with the girl calling for her lover:

Turn back, turn back, don't be a rover,
Jemmy turn back and fit you by my fide;
You may ftay while his paffions over,
Jemmy I will be your lovely bride

O father pay me down my portion,
Which is 5,000 pounds you know,
And I'll crofs the wide watery ocean,
Where all the hills are cover'd with fnow.

Jemmy's the man that I admire,
He's the man I do adore,
And if I can't have my heart's desire,
Single I'll go for evermore.

No I will have none of your bread and water,
Nor nothing else that you have,
If I can't have my heart's defire,
Single I will go evermore.

The piece is found in Irish copy - known to be 'late' in appearance - printed with a title of The Cruel Father by Baird in Cork and - we might even say cheekily - Baird insisted that it was 'A New Song'.50

Yet the piece does have a previous appearance in a ballad opera, The Restauration (sic) of King Charles II, written by Walter Ashton and dating from 1732.  Interestingly, too, there is also copy as The Drowsy Maid from W Eyres in Warrington in a compilation entitled The Silk Merchant's Daughter Garland.  This is to make direct comparison with copy from the nexus of printers noted above.  William Eyres, son of John (printing 1756-1761), worked between 1756 and 1803, thus, in respect of The Drowsy Sleeper, pre-dating Porter.  Eyres had been printer, publisher, bookseller, bookbinder and librarian and perhaps owner of a circulating library, another in the line of printers who found it necessary for survival to exploit the many faces of printing work.  We can only speculate that Eyres was the first or one of the first printers to put the piece out in ballad form and so to offer precedent or, equally, that printers like Porter took it straight from a ballad-opera.  The ever-present possibilities inherent in oral dissemination also remain but to fall back on this possibility is not, at this stage of enquiry, helpful.51

Finally, Porter's The Triumph of Freedom, with a somewhat bombastic content, seems to be the only extant printing apart from copy in Baring-Gould collections which, so far, lack full bibliographical information.  Porter copy includes these lines:

Freedom's song of triumph near;
Ruder to the tyrant's ear
Shouts of liberty ...

Slaves! Before a throne that fall,
HE is high above ye all,
HE, that at the people's call
Guards their Liberty.

There is one other possible byway to explore.  The metrical form of the piece echoes Scots wha hae hath Wallace bled.  Robert Burns wrote this in 1793 and it was thought to be associated with the speech that Robert the Bruce gave to his troops before the battle of Bannockburn.  It seems more likely that it was written as tribute to Thomas Muir, an advocate with strong radical sympathies and, indeed, active support for the kinds of political systems found also in Tom Paine's works.  The short version of Muir's story is that he was transported to Australia for his beliefs, escaped, but had been badly wounded and, eventually, died in exile in France in 1799.  Burns, known to have radical ideas himself, seems to have used the name of Wallace both for obviously 'Scottish' purposes and as a disguised reference to Muir, presumably to escape prosecution.  He began the poem on the day that Muir's trial for sedition opened and there is some evidence in his correspondence that he did intend his poem as tribute to Muir.

In whatever way the piece entered the public domain (the sung version having text set to the traditional air of Hey Tuttie Tatie) it became well known and it would not be surprising that, if it was 'in the air', the writing of the Porter piece could have been a short step and without reference to the background of the original.  The Burns and Muir connection certainly fits into the time-scale of potential Porter issue; but there does not seem to be any reason why Porter should - suddenly - embrace any radical cause especially in view of his clear adherence to the values of an ordered and somewhat conservative society.  One might speculate on the possibility of commission which, as something of a jobbing printer, Porter, like many another, would have considered legitimate work.  The strange echoes remain.53

***

In putting it all together we can see, firstly, that the very range of Porter wares laid out for perusal might suggest that they were not his only printings, a matter of possible intrigue.  There is then the matter of how, on a few occasions, he exhibited an independent cast of mind amongst the lives and work of other printers.  We have found three ballads exclusive to Porter: his piece on Abercrombie entitled SONG, Lawyer Sly and The Triumph of Freedom.  And, in terms of hierarchy, whilst Pitts can not be denied his place, he is not entirely the prominent figure looming in the background.  Catnach also rarely offers a profile.  Porter is certainly not a camp-follower of either Pitts or Catnach; and this is a vital factor in establishing his pedigree - which invokes the notion of his being an 'early' printer.  These considerations give us parameters.

Secondly, within these parameters, we find an apparent tie-up in some form or another with other printers, be it deliberate, or in the nature of copying - even purely coincidental - that shows a printer aware of the appeal of ballads and with an eye to the activities of competitors and, perhaps, to the sharing of material.  We should not forget the presence in ballad background of printers such as Eyres - even if not as a broadside ballad printer - and then, with less daylight between them and Porter, Laurie and Whittle.  And we can focus still more closely.  Apart from the two clear predecessors in printing, and inclusive of those printgs without attribution, there are over forty printers who can be loosely associated with Porter's printings.  However, there is a group of around a dozen who may be discounted insofar as they printed at times after the emergence of Porter himself - specifically, after 1820.  These have been mentioned in text: and some of the more obvious examples would be, say, Birt, Williams and Harkness and the London printers who 'followed' Pitts and Catnach.  Several printers issued ballads at a time when Porter did too, but then continued to issue ballads after Porter (apparently) disappeared from view - Kendrew, Walker, Hogget and Russell, for example, each of whom emerge just at the tail-end of Porter's productive life of ballad-printing as far as it is known.  There are a few printers, like Sherring, Hook, Rosson and Cooper who are relatively obscure - in one way, this does help to confirm the 'early' nature of ballad issue in which Porter is found.  We are still left with a group that it is more definitely appropriate to describe as 'early' in respect of their emergence in time.  Of these, Collard (there is no sure ground of dating here) with six ballads in common and Hurd and Evans with three stand out.  Pitts certainly shares ballads in common with Porter within an 'early' time-scale; and - again - one more issued with Jennings.  Jennings on his own (so to speak), Sarah Taylor, Clouter and Alice Swindells also share ballads with Porter.  There is, then, a certain concentration of printers not just in historical time but where particular texts suggest at least a fashion and perhaps a contemporary relevance.

The list of 'early' ballad-printers, then, would include Evans, Pigott, Jennings, Hurd, Clouter, Storer, Sarah Taylor, Shipway, Crome - and we could include Margaret Angus.  Then Alice Swindells, Pitts, Catnach et al appear.  Collard's connections have not, so far, been pinpointed as far as dating is concerned but his presence is major.

Thirdly, in this core group we find some shared ballads that reflect a historical period of relative stability with its own mores that underlines the 'early' manifestation as discussed here.  Still - and quite normally - we see that some of Porter's ballads, concomitant with the collective activity of printers as noted throughout discussion, had a prolonged life.  The Pleasures of Matrimony, A Wife Well Managed, The Country Lass, Nobody Coming to Bury Me, The Ways of the World, The Drowsy Sleeper and The Belfast Shoemaker all stand out as being reasonably long-lived.  We can view the two aspects of continuity and change together in, say, the subject-matter and the imagery of The Belfast Shoemaker that would seem to set its origin firmly in the eighteenth century and Porter seems to have erred on the side of caution and to have followed precedent or, at least, a contemporary mode of issue - unlike, say, Such and Harkness in their very much changed issues of The Belfast Shoemaker at a later stage in ballad-printing history.  Similarly, reviewing the two commentaries on the state of the nation - The Ways of the World and The Cries of the Nation - there is an apparent grounding in eighteenth century society.  Indeed, The Ways of the World even refers to 'my grandmothers (sic) days'.  To be fair, this might be a claim found in ballads of a different period in time ... a conventional kind of claim in balladry.  The immediate impulse for Porter, understandably, would seem to have been that of commercial motivation - yet, as with The Belfast Shoemaker, the form (not necessarily the details) of the pieces in other copy emerging later in time is unaltered.

This can be further illustrated.  Porter drew on stock characters that would appear to date from a former historical time of relative stability and of predominantly rural social mores involving - say - sailors, farmers, milkmaids and common couples.  There is nothing in Porter that elevates the high and the mighty of the times even if the rich receive a side-swipe now and then.  There are, to be sure, two panegyrics - Nelson in The Mouth of the Nile and, in a completely different fashion, in The Triumph of Freedom - where the 'hero' is not even named ....

Of the rural characters, some of their portraits depend on the conventions of balladry itself for effect as in the the images of squabbling couples and the pretence of fashion amongst the poorer - if socially ambitious - people in society.

Whilst similar characters do resurface in the output of later printers there is a marked change of portraiture, of tone and of language as the new century progressed.  There is, for instance, a definite shift towards a nebulous romanticism; and this can be mirrored in many ballads as the new century wore on, a quite different currency to the one that can be found in the Porter ballads that are usually rather more pithy in character.  One might cite 'newer' pieces such as The Light Guitar, I've been roaming, I'd be a butterfly, My heart and lute, The moon is up, Rise, gentle moon, Love's Ritornella and The Arab Steed, most having a life on stage and in lyric collections as well as featuring on broadsides.  We can refer back to Kendrew for further illustration.

It is not that the examples of a romantic inclination are entirely absent from repertoire at an early mark since there are glimpses in, say, My friend and Pitcher, a piece that certainly appeared in 1799, and The mountain maid, dating from Kane O'Hara's burletta, Midas, a favourite from the 1760s on; but that the fashion for them amongst printers is a feature of a time after Porter's career.  Obviously, the matter is complex but would seem to be a profitable one for looking at how the delineation of broadside repertoire at different times can be highlighted.  The kind of change will be seen as inevitable as society and its obsessions changed.54

Otherwise, we do not have enough Porter ballads to be able to abstract anything more and it looks as if much the same could be said of some of the other printers whose activities coincided with those of Porter - Clouter and Storer, for example.  Of others still there must be a great deal more to say based on their output - the Angus and Swindells families and Collard in particular.  Catnach and Pitts stand rather outside this line of enquiry insofar as they are accepted as major movers and shakers and have been moderately well studied.  In all this, the many references to dates of birth and death above should enable us to see that Porter was very much a figure of business and entertainment that flourished during the late eighteenth century and in the early part of the nineteenth; and that this is a way of illustrating the epithet 'early' as used here.

In spite of the fact, then, that Porter sometimes displayed an independence of mind in his choice of material, most often that material does locate him amongst a general - one might almost say 'safe' - run of printers who all adopted similar strategies and mostly at the same or closely aligned dates.

The crucial features of ballad-production at this time seem always to have been those of theme, image and archetype.

Roly Brown - 13.6.15
Oradour sur Vayres, France

Notes:

1.  I am grateful to the Cambridge university library and the Bodleian library for permission to quote from their respective stock of ballads and to VWML for the supply of material and for continuing courtesies.  The late Roy Palmer was ever helpful; and as are Keith Chandler (South Leigh) and Andrew Bathe (Cirencester), the latter who first furnished me with the Norris article.  Steve Roud has patiently answered enquiries and without his index of ballads any task would have been infinitely more difficult.  Various Rootschat correspondents have added valuable details.

2.  Bence printed Nelson's Glory (in the Bodleian archives as Johnson Ballads 2081b); and, in Steve Roud's broadside index, we find Daniel Cooper's Garland that included The Farmer and the Mole-catcher, G. in Tears; Or, All Alive at L., and Roger and Sue.  Bence is listed as one of a nexus of printers or, perhaps more accurately, agents for the distribution of ballads, the operative names being M Viner & M Nailer (Bristol), W Williams (Monmouth), J Blunt (Ross), J Price (Kington), P Hodges (Hereford), J Bence (Wotton) and M Cook (Gloucester).  The date given for this assembly is c.1765.  There is a story here, no doubt ... Bence, we see, may have had a long active life involved in the print trades.  The nexus is one of several throughout the country, some mentioned below and others under review in forthcoming articles.

3.  Notice of the various occupations in which printers might have been separately engaged is set out in my article on Devon printers, MT 129 - examples only and a subject referred to in other articles in this series.  With respect to the finish of Porter's career and to his death, various notices for various Porters are still being investigated - so far without clarification.  It should be noted that the Gloucestershire Archives reference to Porter and his printing-press is available on-line; and, further, that, according to the same note, Bence got his certificate for a printing press in 1799.

4.  For Nelson, see MT articles 165, 172 and 173. 

5.  For execution ballads, see MT articles 116, 122, 156, 157, 158, 168, 194, 291, 292, 203, 205, 278 and 287.

6.  Storer's copy of The Waterloo Wedding may be found as Madden Volume 90, Number 371.  England's Glory appears as Madden Volume 90, Number 361.  Notice of it appears in my MT article 172 in a survey of ballads about Nelson and the Nile (Aboukir, 1798).

7.  Roy Palmer has listed all of Sarah Taylor's ballads, part of his survey of Birmingham printers, the list available as MTarticle 238.  For Sarah Taylor's copy of The Waterloo Wedding, see Madden Volume 88, Number 615.

8.  Hook is listed on copy in Steve Roud's index; but not in the British Book Trades Index.  Hook, in fact, was part of the Catnach nexus of agents that spread to the south coast of England and elsewhere - including Bennett in Brighton, for instance, Sharman in Cambridge, Marshall in Bristol and Pierce in Southborough.

9.  Rosson does appear in Steve Roud's index.  Rosson's two copies of The Waterloo Wedding can be found in the Bodleian archives as 2806 c. 17(484r) and 2806 c. 17(399).

10.  Cooper's Wolfe piece is, as might be imagined, post-1759 and the general's death on the Heights of Abraham and this in itself might underline the retrospective nature of some ballads, noted above in connection with Nelson and, of course, where The Waterloo Wedding is concerned.  The Rosy Morn is a variant, it seems, of a piece printed also by Catnach, Pitts (after 1819), Keys of Devonport and Batchelar in London.  The Steve Roud citation implies that the stanza coming under the title Peasant, set out on Cooper copy along with The Rosy Morn, is a different ballad.  Peasant does not appear at all on printings of The Rosy Morn from either Catnach and Pitts - who also called their version The Gleaner.  There is one more copy of The Waterloo Wedding, unattributed, that has the same text.  The Cooper in question is definitely not the one associated with printings of The Windsor Lady and The Bristol Bridegroom which were printed and sold by J Butler, High-Street, Worcester and sold by J Lewis, Broad Street, Worcester, S Hazard, Bolt Lane, Gloucester and, finally, J Cooper, Hall-street, Kidderminster.  Likewise, Steve Roud has a reference to Country John's Garland in which a piece issued by Cooper appeared ('You young men that down in the country do dwell') and this 'Garland' was distributed by yet another related nexus of interested parties, namely J Butler in Worcester, S Hazell in Gloucester, G Lewis and A Gamidge, also in Worcester and, finally, Cooper - in Kidderminster.  One important aspect of these collective issues is that Gamidge was a Bookseller, Publisher, Stationer, Print seller - and so on - between 1756 and 1777, but was not a printer and was, so to speak, overlapped by Mrs Ann Gamidge, with credentials as Bookseller and Stationer, working between 1770 and 1798 - as in the case of Porter, one wonders if 'Stationer' could have covered activity as 'Printer' too.  George Lewis was a bookseller and stationer working out of Worcester between 1770 and 1798, evidently as a bookseller between 1784 and 1786 and is possibly the same George Lewis who can be found in Worcester in 1808.  Butler was in High Street, Worcester between 1780 and 1790.  Samuel Hazard was printer to the Cheap repository in Cheapside, London - with connections to Aldermary churchyard printers including John Marshall who was prominent during the late eighteenth century.  Hazell operated in Gloucester between 1780 and 1790.  And BBTI lists a J Cooper operating in Kidderminster as a bookseller between 1780 and 1790.  Indeed, both the Bodleian and the English Short Title Index, swapping detail one from the other, indicate that The Windsor Lady and The Bristol Bridegroom themselves may date from around 1792.  The Cooper involved as some kind of issuing agent was not, then, 'our' man.  J Cooper, printer of The Waterloo Wedding, remains in obscurity for the moment - but there are possible leads with regard to the 'pins' trade aspect, being followed up.

11.  Shipway's copy of The Lamentation ... of the three men executed for highway robbery on August 14th 1818 is found as Madden 90, Number 647 and it looks as if it was printed on the same sheet as his copy of The Waterloo Wedding, Madden Volume 90, Number 648.

12.  Collard's copy of The Waterloo Wedding is found as Madden Volume 90, Number 307.  His ballad on the battle of Waterloo is found as Madden Volume 90, Number 191 It is worth noting that the Madden arrangement on Collard copy is conventionally alphabetical but that this extends to each separate sheet where there may be two ballads, the second of which not only follows in alphabetical order of its first letter but then of the second letter too.  This is not always the case with Madden where the second letter of any word is not always counted.

13.  Porter copy of The Mouth of THE NILE is in Madden as Volume 90, Number 669; Pitts' copy from his first address as Madden Volume 75, Number 1129; two copies from Catnach as Madden Volume 77, Number 469 and in the Bodleian archive as Harding B 11(2502) - these two copies have the same header block of a paddle steamer, which might push the date of issue well forward into the nineteenth century (the matter of header blocks is addressed in brief notes throughout this article).  Another Catnach copy is found as Madden Volume 77, Number 467 on which the address is given simply as '2, Monmouth Court' as opposed to '2, Monmouth Court, 7 Dials' on the other copies, a small deviation that may help to delineate issue.  Pitts copies from his second address are found in the Bodleian archive as Harding B 11(877) and, same source, as Johnson Ballads 795 and again as Madden Volume 76, Number 913 (all these copies look as if they are the same); and there is a separate copy found as Madden Volume 75, Number 1125 that has a header block whereas the others do not.  The rest of the copies cited are as follows - that from Hillat and Martin as Madden Volume 80, Number 402; from Wood in the Bodleian archive as Harding B 25(1724); from Armstrong, same source, as Harding B 17(199b); from Cadman, same source, as Harding B 1(1509); from Such, same source, as Harding B 11(2503); and from Harkness, as Madden Volume 85, Number 1148.  There are three copies from Dickinson, found in the Bodleian archive as Firth c. 12(32), Firth b. 25(152) and as Harding B 11 (1589) - all three Dickinson copies have the same header block - of a man smoking a pipe - on them.  Porter copy, grandiosely, has a large heraldic device at its head.  Finally in the list of printings, the Bodleian unattributed copies appear as Firth c. 12(34) and Harding B 25(1274).  George Wood worked between 1808 and 1835 from several addresses and there are ballads available in the Bodleian archives: Bonaparte's mistake at Germany, printed with Boney in England and found as Harding B (247) and A new song, called the Moutains (sic) high which is on the same sheet as The Mouth of the Nile.  There is no attribution with Boney in England but the format is commensurate with that of the other ballads and the header block is the same on both ballads.  Dates are given: 1813 and 1814 and these cerrtainly fit the BBTI dates for Wood's career and, of course, tally in time with Porter issue.  Further, an address for George Wood - among the several - in two BBTI references of 11 Price's St, Old Dock helps to confirm the printer's name.  Dickinson was Bernard William, operating after Porter between 1824 and 1834 from an address in Petergate, York.  The Cadman in question was John, working from Great Ancoats Street, Manchester between 1850 and 1855 and so does not count as far as the emergence of Porter is concerned.  London printers give us much to chew on ...  Hillat and Martin appear to have worked sometimes in concert with Hill in London; and Martin with Smeeton, Hill and Taylor ...  this amounts to both a nexus of consenting printers and of agents for distribution - there is a Bodleian archive entry for The minstrel (to) his steed that reads 'John Hill (late Taylor)' - Harding B 15(202a).  Another Hill ballad, Blow the candle in, found in the Bodleian archive as Harding B 17(30a), was also 'sold by J Martin, Little Prescott Street'.  Hill himself operated out of 14 Waterloo Road, Lambeth, at a time that looks to be in tandem with at least part of the operative period of George Smeeton who worked between 1808 and 1839, thus taking in the acknowledged hey-day of ballad-printing.  A BBTI reference, with a date of 1837, indicates that Hillat worked out of Camden Town.  The Hillat and Martin corpus is eclectic enough, inclusive of Should ould acquaintance ..., I come from old Kentucky, The Sicilian Maid, Highland Mary, The Arethusa, Cold winter is past and the intriguingly entitled Peruvians awake to glory.  These titles alone bespeak a wide range of sources and periods in historical time and this whole London complex is worthy of study in order to untangle it.

14.  Apart from Hely-Hutchinson, Oakes and Smith, we note that General Sir John Moore (1761-1809), immortalised after the retreat to Corunna (1810), fought on the British right flank during the Aboukir campaign.  The most well-known piece that has Moore as central character is The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna, written by Charles Wolfe (1791-1823) - 'Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note ...' - and published in 1817, yet another example of retrospection.  It was subsequently much anthologised.  It appeared also in broadside form - rather oddly, perhaps, only in the north of England, as far as can be told from extant copy - from George Walker, junior (with John Livsey), found in the Bodleian archive as Harding B 16(173a); from Forth in Bridlington, same source, as Firth c. 12(58), from Fordyce (in the Carnell collection); and from Harkness as Madden Volume 85, Number 608.  Elder in Edinburgh printed it (probably John Elder, 1831-1836 who has this and a few other ballads listed in the Roud index).  It also travelled to Ireland, late on.  It was prominent in Songsters, one of the earliest being Smith's Scottish Minstrel, 1st. edn., 1820-1824 ... but most other sightings are from the mid-century: The New Skylark, c. 1840, Emerick's Songs for the People, 1, 1848, Davidson's Universal Melodist 2, 1848 ... and then on through the 1860s, 1870s and 1880s.  This bespeaks retrospection, indeed; a piece suitable, no doubt, for parlour recitation.

15.  There is a brief life of Adam Stark online (Wikipedia) taken from DNB, Vol.  54 (1898); and there are other online details of his general work.  The reference to Stark given here is from BBTI and there his active printing days are located between 1812 and 1844 and his address as 'Market Pl.', Gainsborough.  There are ballads from Stark in the Bodleian archives - Joltering Giles and Jockey and Janny's trip to the Fair on the one sheet, Harding B 16(119b); and Ben Block, found as Harding B 16(20c).  As for 'R Evans', private enquiries in Chester, where Evans had evidently worked, unearthed nothing ...  It does seem that he was a member of a printing family but the firm's records have all been lost.  The Dibdin piece was printed by Jennings and by Walker and these two printers will be seen to have issued copies of ballads that were also printed by Porter - so details given here are relevant.  John Jennings worked first out of Upper Marylebone Street between 1795 and c. 1800 and then between 1802 and 1809 from Water-Lane, Fleet Street, the address on copy here and elsewhere in the Bodleian archives.  There are two house numbers on Jennings ballads - 13 and 15.  He is, clearly enough, an 'early' printer and the start of his printing activities appear to pre-date Porter.  Robert Walker printed his copy from near the Duke's Palace in Norwich between 1820 and 1827.  Walker's movements around Norwich were set out in a previous article, MT 217.  Suffice to say here that he moved from his Duke's Palace address to St Lawrence's Step in Norwich at around 1827 and the known dates of the birth of his children confirm his domicile there.  There is yet another printing of the Dibdin piece dated 1839 in Steve Roud's index.  This was from George Walker junior, printing between 1834 and 1886 in Durham.  And there is one other Abercrombie text with the title A New Song Made on the Success of His Majesty's Arms in Egypt issued by Samuel Clouter in Bristol, found in the Bodleian archives as Harding B 25(1841).  Clouter also issued a ballad on Napoleon: A stoppage to a stride over the globe - simply an English boast in defiance of Napoleon's ambition without any more detail and this is found in the Bodleian archive as Harding B 25(1841).  These pieces help to set Clouter in historical time; and there are other glimpses.  The BBTI has a reference to him dated 1800; and, further, he is known to have operated out of Bath Street, Bristol, between 1803 and 1805 and then, according to Holden's 1811 street directory, out of Castle Street, Bristol, in 1811.  The few extant Clouter ballads in the Madden collection all carry the Castle Street address.  He may, like Jennings, have pre-dated Porter.  In the end, despite one or two details that continue to emerge, often quite disconnected, there is, as yet, no comprehensive account of Clouter's activities any more than there is of Porter's.  Additional to this group of references,we find that ballads associated with the death of Abercrombie, most often the Dibdin piece, surfaced in some numbers in Songsters.  The Roud index has a comprehensive list that includes references to John Marshall in Newcastle, printing between 1801 and 1831: his Abercrombie piece appeared in A Garland of New Songs, a series of chapbooks issued, it seems, from the 1790s on but, in this case, obviously, after 1801.  W.  Gay in Plymouth printed it in The Fashionable Songsterc.  1805 - seemingly, then, a very early version.  Nothing seems to be known about Gay.  The Vocal Libraryof 1820 had The Death of Abercrombie.  A version can be found in Universal Songster - the first volume appeared in 1825.  The London Songster, printed by Dean and Munday, included it c.1830.  A Goode copy appeared in Model Song Book, c.1848.  There are also references to printings by Fordyce and Angus but no extant copy.  A concomitant line of Scottish printing runs through Fraser in Stirling; a Ratcliff Bibliothek reference to Robertson in Glasgow dated 1804; and including Caldwell in Paisley who had a piece entitled Abercrombie's last battle (a Lane catalogue reference).  The Fraser in question was John, printing from 1816 to 1826.  George Caldwell junior, a printer and bookseller from 1824 on and, after 1825, one of the more prolific printers of chapbooks up until the 1840s when the family's trade in that quarter diminished, looks to be the printer concerned with ballads about Abercrombie.  The Caldwell family continued to print is one fashion or another into the 1870s.  The conclusion would seem to be that the Fraser and Caldwell Abercrombie pieces came out late in time, as opposed to that from Robertson.  As usual, any attempt to suggest lines of descent in balladry, in this case the possibility that Scottish printers operated before their English counterparts - already brought into tentative focus - is scuppered.  The reality is more complex.  Mention of John Elder in note 13 underlines this.

16.  Porter copy of The Belfast Shoemaker is found as Madden Volume 90, Number 662.  The Scottish references are all found in the Ratcliff Bibliothek listings (1961) noted severally in Steve Roud's index.  There do not appear to be any extant examples of ballads.  According to the Scottish Book Trades Index, Buchan printed ballads from Peterhead between 1816 and 1831 - he had an extended if fraught career in Peterhead, Aberdeen, Glasgow and London; Randall in Stirling between 1793 and 1813; and Robertson in Glasgow, certainly in 1799 and, on the evidence of the particular ballad, in 1807.  This was almost certainly Matthew, brother of James with whom Matthew worked as a printer.  James died in 1805.  The title from Robertson is interesting: Bold Shoemaker; Or, Bold Irvin and Jean Wilson.  I am grateful to Dr Annette Hagan at the National Library of Scotland for help in pinpointing Matthew Robertson's name in connection with The Belfast Shoemaker.  One can see how the Porter copy differed and how Such and Harkness exhibited a different line of attachment to a nominal Irish actuality.

17.  A period is invoked for 'G Pigott' and by reversing the procedure of comparison with Porter and others, this time taking a cue from Porter, a framework for Pigott issue (G Pigott, that is) can be posited just prior to the emergence of Porter.  Charles Pigott, in contrast, often has a different order of ballad including one on fashions that, in its details, helps to set a later date of issue - fashion being a useful if not conclusive mark of a particular historical period, as it turns out to be with Porter and as it is, therefore, discussed below.  G Pigott's The Belfast Shoemakeris found in the Bodleian archive as Harding B 25(167).  In tracing the Pigott hierarchy, one should note that there is a Pigott ballad on Queen Caroline that could not have appeared until her banishment from the royal presence during 1820-1821.  Detail about Pigott's printing life is thus partly circumscribed.  Jennings' copy is found in the Bodleian archive as 2806 c. 18(24).  Hurd copy is found as Madden Volume 90, Number 86.  Pitts copy is found as Madden Volume 75, Number 95.

18.  Birt copy is found as Madden Volume 79, Number 211 (and the piece can be found in Birt's catalogues as Number 128).  Such, too, listed the piece in his catalogue (Number 64).  Such copy is also found in the Lucy Broadwood, Crampton, Frank Kidson and Baring-Gould collections; and, finally, in the Bodleian archive as Harding B 11(3407).  Harkness copy is found in the Bodleian archive as 2806 c. 15(262).  All this information is contained in the Roud index.

19.  The brief history of the 'Blues' has been compiled from various sources including some online.

20.  Porter's Light Bobis found as Madden Volume 90, Number 643 and in the Bodleian archive as Johnson Ballads 1540.  Copy without imprint is found in the Bodleian archive as Harding B 26(1106).  Steve Roud gives the reference to the Collard 1837 list.  The Baker's Courtship is mentioned again below in footnote 25.

21.  As in the case of the history of the 'Blues', detail attached to Light Bob has been compiled from various sources.

22.  Porter's Cries of the Nation is found as Madden Volume 90, Number 664 (and, according to the Steve Roud index, in a British Library collection ...).  Bloomer copy is found as Madden Volume 88, Number 18; Walker's in the Bodleian archive as Douce Ballads 4(55).  Steve Roud refers to Collard's 1837 list.

23.  Historians inform us that weavers suffered greatly as their work dried up, particularly at the start of the new century (1807 and 1808 were salient points of distress).  Similarly, during the middle of the 1820s it was the weavers who bore much of the brunt of depression; and again during the 1840s.  This was not necessarily a national so much as a regional phenomenon.  Ballads, it seems, concentrated particularly on the north of England and at various times during the nineteenth century - the celebrated Joan o' Greenfield (the name varies in spelling) emerged as a well-known character amongst printers such as Kiernan and Bebbington in Manchester at the mid-century mark.  We should add that there are also plenty of examples of weavers as happy persons, as central figures in courtships that obeyed the conventional modes of presentation.  Sometimes, too, their sexual exploits are presented in a somewhat startling manner.

24.  Examples include complaints made in ballads such as, say, What's Old England Come To? with the disparate characters of farmer and comedian unable to make a living and where 'There's Manchester and Birmingham, alas, are fell to ruin' whilst 'our Tars are starving on the land'.  Copy exists from Pitts after 1819 can be found in the Bodleian archive as Harding B 11(4118); from W Jackson and Son 1842-1855 as Harding B 11(2476); from Pratt (c.1850) as Firth b. 26(162); from Such as Firth c. 16(251); and from Harkness as Harding B 11(1390) The piece also appeared as Old Ireland what have you come to and can be found in the Bodleian archive as 2806 b.11 (282).  Tars on land would suggest a post-Napoleonic period of unemployment for the unfortunate seamen; and issue of the ballad by the printers named above was, often, at a time way after Porter's emergence.  It could even have been that the Irish version came out post-Famine (1845-1849), since Irish single copy ballads are more often than not of a relatively late vintage.  Trade depression is encountered in, say, the Swindells printing of Distress of Trade - in the Bodleian archive as2806 c. 17(100) and in a piece from Moss in Doncaster beginning 'Oh, what a stagnation is trade', a piece that mentions railways and so ought to be from the mid-century.  Indeed, there is a reference to a W Moss, working out of St Sepulchre Gate, Doncaster as printer and publisher in 1846 (BBTI).  There is, in addition, a Harkness piece entitled England's decline, found in the Bodleian archive as Harding B(4013) ...  There are also various ballads with the title Mechanics' lamentation - from Catnach, for instance - in the Bodleian archive as 2806 c. 17(269) and from Armstrong, same source, as 2806 c. 17(268) - concerning spinners and weavers; and The Trade man's lamentation (n.i) in the Bodleian archive as Harding B 17(48b).  Further, other single trades receive specific attention - Marshall in Newcastle has The keelman's complaint - in the Bodleian archive as Harding B 25(1019).  A piece was printed for Charles Cox, appearing c.1823, entitled The farmer's downfall and the poor man's distress and found in the Bodleian archives as Firth c. 16(27) and as a different printing with the title The Farmer's Downfall, issued by Croshaw, working in York between 1814 and 1815, found in the Bodleian archive as 2806 c. 18(109) and by Hoggett in Durham, working between 1816 and 1843, also found in the Bodleian archive - as Harding B 11(599).  The subject cropped up again in Free Trade, or The Farmer's Downfall, printed by Pratt and found in the Bodleian archive as Firth c. 16(288).  Kiernan has 'I am a poor weaver and forced to roam' - in the Bodleian archive as 806 c. 17(456) ...  Dean and Munday 1811-42 have a vituperative set of The farmer's prayer, Coal-merchant's prayer and The poor-man's prayer - again in the Bodleian archive, as Harding B 11(3817).  The list, as can be seen, is long and varied and it underlines a constant theme of distress found in balladry throughout the nineteenth century (see also footnote 48 on John Crome).

25.  Porter copies (two) are found as Madden Volume 90, Numbers 664 and 665, each - this subject is touched on again below - having different header blocks.  Both were issued from 'Wotton-Underedge', not quite how the place was named on other copy.

26.  Porter copy is found in the Bodleian archives as Harding B 16(323a) and in Steve Roud index as Madden Volume 75, Number 208.  Sarah Taylor copy is found as Madden Volume 88, Number 580 and Storer's as Madden Volume 90, Number 362.  Hurd copy is found as Madden Volume 90, Number 111.  Armstrong copies are found in the Bodleian archives as Harding B 28(140) - this is the one with Squire and the Milkmaid on it; and Harding B 28(161) - Dolly Dugginswith Cherry-cheek'd Patty.  Angus copy is found in the same source as Harding B 25(536).  Pitts copy is found in the Bodleian archives as Harding B 17(76b) - with the cross-hatch motif.  There are two Pitts printings that use the tune of Dolly Duggins, both issued after 1819 - Harding B 25(875), The Husband's Answer, describing much the same kind of spats between a couple that are found in Dolly Duggins; and The Baker's Courtship, being the Answer to "What are You after", in the Bodleian archive as Firth c. 19(160) where there is a header block of a gentlemen with two children on it.  The only reference involving Collard is to his 1837 list.  The unattributed copy, beginning 'Lud what folks I see ...' instead of 'Lord', is found in the Bodleian archives as Harding B 16(343).

27.  Catnach copy of the ballad is found in the Bodleian archive as 2806 c. 16(26) and as Madden Volume 77, Number 382; Hurd's as Madden Volume 90, Number 130; Walker's in the Bodleian archive as Harding B 25(1505).  A full discussion of Walker's movements, already rehearsed in this piece, is given in MT article 217.  Copy from Williams is found as Madden Volume 89, Number 399 and from Jackson as Madden Volume 88, Number 465.  Jackson worked between 1839 and 1852-1853 (see Roy Palmer's list as MT article 233); and James Williams printed out of Portsea during the 1830s and 1840s (an account is being put together).

28.  The exact quotation from Northanger Abbey is as follows -'Inquiries and communications concerning brothers and sisters, the situation of some, the growth of the rest, and other family matters now passed between them, and continued, with only one small digression on James's part, in praise of Miss Thorpe, till they reached Pulteney Street, where he was welcomed with great kindness by Mr and Mrs Allen, invited by the former to dine with them, and summoned by the latter to guess the price and weigh the merits of a new muff and tippet.'  The list from Lady Bridges cited in text above offers a glimpse of the 'necessities' of housekeeping and, indeed, of a year's worth of clothes for young ladies who had pretence to fashion.  Dates for the girls are as follows: Elizabeth Bridges (1773-1808), Fanny Bridges (1771-1805) and Sophia Bridges (1772-1846).

29.  Porter copy of The Wife Well Managed is found as Madden, Volume 90, Number 670; that from Swindells as Madden Volume 85, Number 141; from Pitts in the Bodleian archive as Harding B 16(305d); and as copy without imprint, same source, as Harding B 25(2053).  Hurd copy is found as Madden Volume 90, Number 108.  Apropos the Swindells name, George is listed in the Universal British Directory covering the years 1792 to 1796 with an address at 'Hanging Bridges'.  A reference in the Universal British Directory has Alice at '5 Hanging Bridge' in 1797 as printer and bookseller; and she is further listed in the same source as operating between 1790 and 1828.  This period, of course, covers the time when Porter was printing.  To complete the picture, so to speak, Holden's 1811 directory lists Alice Swindells as 'printer and bookseller' at 'Hanging Bridge' and a Pigot directory for 1828-1829 lists her as a printer.  A John Swindells does appear, working between 1838 and 1841.  It is interesting to find an online reference in A Dictionary of Printers and Printing ... compiled by Charles Henry Timperly and published in 1839, to the death of George Swindells in 1796 which adds that he 'established an extensive business in ballads, Christmas cards, &c, which is still carried on by his eldest son, John'.  There is no mention of Alice.

30.  Porter copy of Lawyer Sly is found in Madden Volume 90, Number 668.

31.  For Porter copy of The Country Lass see Madden Volume 90, Number 663.  The first Evans copy mentioned is found as Madden Volume 71, Number 395; that from Evans and Howard as Madden Volume 74, Number 57, whose association, according to BBTI, is dated to 1805.  The whole Evans complex, including his fraught relationship with John Marshall over the premises at 41 and 42 Long Lane, has been surveyed by David Stoker in his article John Marshall, John Evans, and the Cheap Repository Tracts, 1793-1800 (Publications of the Bibliographical Society of America, Vol.107, Number 1, 2013, pp.81-118).  I am grateful to Steve Roud for drawing my attention to this source.

32.  Jennings copy of The Country Lassis found as Madden Volume 74, Number 379, Clouter's as Madden 90, Number 173 and Armstrong's in the Bodleian archive as Harding B 28(58).  Pitts copies may be found in the Bodleian archive as Harding B 28(58) and as Harding B 16(63), both issued between 1802 and 1819 and as Harding B 11(2234), printed after 1819; and, again after 1819, found as Harding B 16(76b) - there is also copy without imprint that looks suspiciously like that from Pitts and is noted in the Bodleian as Harding B (76a).  There are further Pitts copies in Madden ...  As for the later printers of the particular piece - BBTI has Ryle printing ballads between 1839 and 1859 and copy is found in the Bodleian archive as Harding B 11(3874) and as Johnson Ballads 1135; Pratt copy, same source, as Firth b. 26(47), issued between 1840 and 1850; and copy from Such, printing after 1863, found in the Bodleian as Harding B 11(721).  This is certainly a sufficient number to show how popular the piece was.

33.  Porter copy of Nobody's coming to bury me ... is found as Madden Volume 90, Number 644, and in the Bodleian archives as Harding B 16(171a).

34.  The Laurie and Whittle copy is found in the Bodleian archive as Harding B 10(1).  Online information indicates that John Clare had yet another variant on the theme that is an elaboration of words from his father's singing.  Much of the ballad-printing complex here is, like the Clare version, set at a tangent to Porter issue, not concerned with the 'bury me' tale; and surfaces in a medley of online snippets, some of which are mentioned below.  Charles Matthews is well-enough known for his appearances on stage and in his capacity as theatre manager.  He married Lucia Elizabeth Vestris (1707-1856), a talented and popular singer of the time, usually referred to as Eliza Vestris, who also acted as manager with Matthews and eventually on her own at The Adelphi theatre, London.  Kertland is still something of an enigmatic figure.  No definite date of birth has been discovered yet although it was thought that he was born in England.  A certificate dating from 1812 indicates a marriage to an Elinor Greham who, it seems, appears as a widow in 1854 as Ellen Kertland.  A death notice for a William Kertland, almost certainly the same man, appeared in the Dublin Weekly Register of 25th July 1846.  In an online note about 'Forgotten Books' a William Kertland was described as a Dublin tradesman as well as a writer; and may have been one and the same with a William Kertland who established a business as chemist in Dublin.  The available addresses for 'Kertland' do tie up.  It looks, too, as if Kertland was involved in politics to an extent, supporting pro-Catholic causes in opposition to an overwhelmingly Protestant English government control.  A William Kertland certainly wrote for the stage: dramas such as Patrick and Kathleen in 1822, The Maid of Snowdon in 1833 and Shaun Long and the Fairies (sometimes 'Shawn') in 1835.  A 'Prologue to Shaun Long and the fairies' was 'spoken by Mr Pritchard at the Theatre Royal, Dublin' on January 22nd 1835.  This Pritchard looks as if it was the actor John Langford Pritchard, born in 1799.  There are references to his appearance in Edinburgh, Dublin and London during the 1830s but these, of course, as the reference given above shows, were long after Porter's career.  No date of death for Pritchard has yet been found.

35.  The Pitts and Jennings (joint) text can be found as Madden Volume 75 , Number 595.  The Laurie and Whittle copy is found in the Bodleian archive as Harding B 10(61).  Of 'Mr R Jones' there is, as yet, no direct reference - but histories of the Theatre Royal in Dublin do credit an 'R Jones' with performances in a range of productions during the early part of the nineteenth century.  Apart from the fascination of trying to offer a fuller picture of R Jones (and of William Kertland) than is presently available there is the equally fascinating relationship between theatrical performance - spoken or sung - and broadside ballads to consider, one of the several areas of study and delight that Porter, inter alia, provokes.

36.  The third version of the ballad from Laurie and Whittle is found in the Bodleian archive as Harding B 10(39).  Further examples of their work include The Ghost of Poor Paddy and the Black Cat, in the Bodleian archive as Harding B (16) and printed in 1801; Giles Scroggin's Ghost in the Bodleian archive as Harding B 10(22) and printed in 1805; and A smile and a tear, issued in 1807, same source, as Johnson Ballads fol.102 - although the print is not italicised on any of these copies.  Such a style would appear to have echoes of earlier printing practice associated with Aldermary churchyard, with some Douce ballads (say) - and, not least, as then used by Pitts ... all these examples having variations of appearance.  The subject is but touched on here.  Dorothy Jordan (1761-1816) was mistress of the Duke of Clarence (cf Claire Tomalin: Mrs Jordan's Profession, 1995), bore him some ten children and then, in 1811, was discarded and lost custody of some of her children to the Duke who, in the same year , was appointed by the Prince Regent to the position of Admiral of the Fleet.  This same Duke, of course, presumably pressurised by the calls of royal duty, became William IV in 1830.

37.  In the long and complex history of the Evans families, there is but a single reference to Howard and Evans in BBTI - to 1805 and activity as printer and print-seller and other trades such as pharmacy (shades of Kertland?).

38.  Pitts and Mantz copy is found as Madden Volume 75, Number 594.  Marshall copy is found referred to in Thomson's Newcastle Chapbooks.  Marshall, indeed, is an interesting character.  Various dates emerge for his ballad-printing enterprises but there would appear to be agreement that he printed between 1810 and 1831 when a note in the London Gazettefor 14th November 1831 indicates that the business had closed.  In BBTI he is listed as printer, bookseller, stationer and owner of a circulating library and, according to an online reference, he was also 'a purveyor of tea' (the London Gazette simply has a reference to Marshall as a 'Dealer').  Marshall's contribution to ballad repertoire included A Collection of Songs, Comic, Satirical and Descriptive, chiefly in the Newcastle Dialect, published in 1827; and a series of Garlands 'of New Songs' plus over thirty Songsters.  I have been unable to consult Street Ballads in Nineteenth-century Great Britain, Ireland and North America, edited by Steve Roud and David Atkinson and published by Ashgate in 2014; but was able to note Peter Wood's article on The Newcastle Song Chapbooks that gives more detail about Marshall.  As for Angus copy, Angus is also referred to in Thomson and dates given are to a period between 1813 and up to 1825 or 1827: most probably, then, to George Angus and not Margaret.  Swindells copy is found as Madden Volume 85, Number 123.  A copy of the piece appeared in A New Theatrical Songster (Victoria and Albert Museum).

39.  Kendrew copy is found in the Bodleian archive as Firth b. 34(207) and in the Roud index is listed as part of a 'collection' in the British Library that appears to be the main repository of his ballad output.  It is likely that the printer in question was James.  There is a BBTI reference to John Kendrew for 1851, working out of the same address as James at '23 Colliergate', York.  More, clearly, needs to be done to expand and clarify these very brief details.

40.  Despite the collective output of copy of the particular ballad in Scotland during the second decade of the century, copy from M'Nairn immediately changes the picture.  Just as other copy has been found when Scottish printers were involved in ballad-printing and in connection with the Porter oeuvres and where most can certainly be cited as 'early', other cases modify any general claim.  Still, the 'early' emphasis is very strong.

41.  See further Alfred Williams: Folk Songs of the Upper Thames (a reprint from S R Publishers, LTD, Wakefield, n. d;), pp.226-227.  See also Mary Ann Carolan (Topic 122TS362), 1982 and There Is a Man Upon the Farm... Voice of the People, Vol.20, TSCD670.

42.  Pitts used Mantz as an agent in the same way that Catnach organised his own nexus, referred to earlier; and in the way that engaged several other printers - say, Stewart, Dalton and Gilbert in the north of England or those associations noted earlier in this article around the Midlands of England; and, again, by Keys in Devonport (this latter is being explored in a forthcoming article).  Of Pitts, one notes an intrigue in his connections with other printers or, at least, with one other printer, on the south coast of England, who has not yet been named.

43.  Catnach copy of The Ways of the World is found in the Bodleian archive as Harding 15(353a) and also in the Baring Gould collections (as noted by Steve Roud) and, unusually for Baring-Gould copy, appearing as Madden Volume 77, Number 91.  Pitts copy is found as Madden Volume 75; Number 1379.  Hoggett copy is in the Bodleian archive as Harding B 11(3552) and as Madden Volume 83, Number 614.  Bloomer copy is found in the Madden collection Volume 88, Number 44; Russell, same source, Volume 88, Number 408.  In the next batch in time Jackson copy is found in Madden as Volume 88, Number 58; Wheeler copy in the Bodleian archives as 2806 c. 17(452) and 2806 c. 17(453); Pratt in the Baring Gould collection; Williams as Madden Volume 89, Number 357 and Volume 89, Number 558; Willey as Madden Volume 90, Number 447; and Phillips as Madden Volume 89, Number 142.  Copies without imprint can be found in the Bodleian archive as Harding B 16(3006) - very like Porter textually - and Harding B 25(353a) where the compression mentioned in text here is evident.  It should be added that Steve Roud gives a reference to Kendrew who is discussed briefly elsewhere in this article.

44.  Clift copy of The Ways of the World is found in the Madden collection as Volume 90, Number 626.  Sherring copy is found in the Bodleian archive as Harding B 25(2011).  In BBTI James Sherring is listed as a bookseller, stationer, printer and insurance agent operating from Market Place, Yeovil (1830).

45.  Evans copy of The World's Ways, printed from 'Long-lane', is found in the Bodleian archive as Harding B 25(2110) and Way of the World ... in the Madden collection as Volume 73, Number 1902.

46.  For an example of The Leicestershire Garland, see the Bodleian archive as Douce Ballads 4(57b); and for The Yarmouth Tragedy, same source, from the Aldermary Churchyard as Harding B 3(96), from Evans as Harding B 3(99), from Davenport (printing ballads between 1802 and 1807) as Harding B 3(97), from Pitts, from his first address, 1892-1819, as Harding B 3(101) and even later from Bloomer in Birmingham (printing ballads between 1821 and 1827) as Harding B 3(103).

47.  Porter copy of The Drowsy Sleeper is found as Madden Volume 90, Number 667.

48.  Copy from Evans can be found as Madden Volume 74, Number 63; Catnach as Madden Volume 77, Number 6 and as Volume 77, Number 640.  Pitts' copy of The Drowsy Sleeper under his own title can be found in the Bodleian archive as Harding B 25(452) and in Madden as Volume 75, Number 181 and Volume 75, Number 182.  Birt copy may be found in the same source, as Harding B 17(183a).

49.  To take up the case of John Crome, who printed The Drowsy Sleeper, found in the Bodleian archive as Harding B 28(233) - he was to be found living at 178 Campo Lane, Sheffield in 1787 (Gales and Martins Directory of Sheffield online) - at this time he was an apprentice - and then working as a printer in Sheffield between 1792 and 1830, not necessarily issuing ballads throughout this time.  Only two of the thirty Crome ballads in the Bodleian archives have any address on them - 30 Bridge Street ...  (Twin Rose and The Yorkshire Lass as Harding B 28(255) and Laurel Wear (Cupid's Garden) with Farmer's Lamentation as Harding B 28(255); and the Bodleian only gives an approximate date of 'c.1817' for other copy - one piece, The Derby Tragedy ..., an execution ballad, being definitely dated to that year.  However, there is plenty of material for assembling a life of ballad-printing by Crome: copy on the battle of Boulogne (1801), almost certainly a retrospective piece; on Trafalgar (1805); and Non mi recordo (printed with The Lads of Thorneymoor Woods) that must post-date the occasion, the Queen Caroline affair of 1820-1821.  There are other ballads that have a historical connection that, as in the case of Porter, may help to ground Crome activities; and, to add to the list given above in footnote 23 on generic lamentations, one ballad entitled The Times - 'Oh England, oh England thy glory is fled ...' as Harding B 28(242), printed with The Sheffield Jubilee; and The Farmer's lamentation, printed with The Cabin Boy as Harding B 28(233) - and, as already noted, with Laurel Wear.  Other than ballad material, there is on-line evidence of Crome's printing work dating from 1812 and he is mentioned in an online reference in The Northern Star ... newspaper in 1817.  The addresses that we have include that of 30 Bridge Street for which BBTI gives dates of 1809-1823, '42 Bridge St' as it appears in a History, Directory and Gazetteer of the County of Yorkshire in both 1822 and 1823 and in Pigot's Commercial Directory for 1818-19-20 and Pigot's 1828-1829 directory and, again, in BBTI ... but these do not circle in on his work as a ballad-printer: simply noting him as being a printer and having a letter-press.  There are also two separate references in BBTI to Bridge Street in 1817 and 1830.  There is further mention (online) of Bridge Street in 1833, this time of number 51, in connection with Margaret, Crome's wife ...  She herself had been as a printer and a rag-and-bone dealer and this is possibly indicative of current social, economic and, as it were, professional status.

50.  Baird copy can be found as Madden Volume 91, Number 518 - John Moulden's PhD thesis, The Printed Ballad in Ireland (University of Galway, 2006 ) makes it clear that Irish single ballad copy is a late flowering.

51.  William Eyres (1734-1809) printed in Warrington through the Eyres Press (1756-1803), following in the footsteps of his father and brother.  He printed the first newspaper in Lancashire, The Warrington Advertiser, established in 1756 although this was a short-lived production ... and was sufficiently well-thought of to be charged with issuing John Howard's book on prison reform.  For our purposes he was known for his development of a trade in chapbooks.

52.  Porter copy of The Triumph of Freedom is found as Madden Volume 90, Number 671.

53.  The focus of attention was on Thomas Muir (1765-1799), described distinctively in online references as being 'of Huntershill', something of a recognition of his gentleman status, perhaps.

54.  Midas, put together by Kane O'Hara (1714?-1782), was first performed in private in Lurgan in 1760 and then got taken up and played in Dublin in 1762 and in London in 1764.  Amongst singers, Catherine Stephens (1794-1882) and Lucia Elizabeth (Madame) Vestris (1797-1856) took The Mountain Maid into their own repertoires.  Pray Goody was the most popular piece from Midas ... sung, as noted on a Walker broadside copy, by 'Mr Kelly' and appearing elsewhere in broadside form - Pitts from his first address (1802-1819), Walker from his Duke's Palace premises (c.1825); and then Hodges and Such.  Again, that connection between theatrical performance and ballad issue is prominent.

Article MT299

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