PUTTING POETRY TO MUSIC

 

Drawing a comparison here with the folk tradition of putting the verse to music. Melinda’s COLLIERS’ STRIKE SONG is undergoing that process at this time in long honoured working class tradition. Melinda McNally Kendall’s entire story is one of poverty, struggle and class schisms, possibly even extending to the way in which she was viewed by the Kendall Family and a childhood in which her father was gaoled in connection with a fencing payment dispute in Castlereagh. That incident coincided with her being taken into the HILL household where she is listed as SERVANT on the census. She lived from 1852 onwards as a single mother and two of her daughters were school teachers as was Melinda herself.  The Rochdale Cooperative Movement was certainly associated with the Coal Mines of the Illawarra by the 1890s and Melinda had written her poem by 1885 with the inclusion of the chorus known now to have originated in Rochdale in 1795. 

Be that as it may, this post includes an audio of an early 20th century poem by THOMAS WILFRED NATHAN. Peter Knox found THE LANE BELOW THE FLATS in a copy of the BULLETIN and in conjunction with members of the band PASPALUM, set it to the music below. 

THE LANE BELOW THE FLATS.

MINOR VICTORIAN POETS AND AUTHORS

http://gerald-massey.org.uk/index.htm

 

GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE

“Where debate is forbidden the charlatan is king.”

G. J. Holyoake, from. . . .  The Jubilee History of the Leeds Industrial Co-operative Society

ROCHDALE PIONEERS.

Welcome.  This web site is dedicated to the life and work of the Chartist, poet, author, and free thinker, Gerald Massey, and to comparable poets and authors of his era, a number of whom by their protests were to influence political and social reform in Victorian Britain.  Most have working-class backgrounds. My aim is to resurrect their writing, much of which has for many decades been unavailable outside of national archives and university libraries, and to place it before a wider audience.

 

SOME OF THE FEMALE AUTHORS: 

EMILY FAITHFULL

An independent and independent-minded Victorian, who left a legacy of writings and activity in one of the most controversial issues of her age, the employment of women.

http://gerald-massey.org.uk/faithfull/index.htm

 

ISA CRAIG KNOX

1831-1903)

Victorian social reformer, women’s rights activist,
journalist, poetess and novelist.

 

ISABELLA FYVIE MAYO

ISABELLA FYVIE MAYO is little remembered today, but during the later decades of the 19th century this determined, independent-minded and hard-working woman became a widely published poetess and author, much of her prose output being published ― both in the U.K. and in North America ― under thenom de plume, “EDWARD GARRETT“.  She also  became a speaker on liberal causes, particularly on the themes of religion, pacifism and animal welfare.

 British parallels to Melinda’s lost writing and working class background.

ROCHDALE PIONEERS BY HOLYOAKE

http://gerald-massey.org.uk/holyoake/b_rochdale_index.htm

SELF-HELP BY THE PEOPLE
_____________

THE HISTORY OF THE

ROCHDALE PIONEERS

BY
GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE
AUTHOR OF “THE HISTORY OF CO-OPERATION IN ENGLAND,
“SIXTY YEARS OF AN AGITATOR’S LIFE”, ETC. ETC.

ROCHDALE MOVEMENT IN AUSTRALIA

BY 1885, Melinda has in some manner encountered the chorus of

The masters they are grumbling in country and in town
They want to starve the workers by keeping wages down.
Now in some parts of England the men were standing out
Against a great reduction and they’re right without a doubt.
In this happy country, man is treated like a slave
When the master gets the profit and the worker gets the work.
You’ve no right to be happy, no right to be well fed,
If they drop our wages, they must drop the price of bread.

 

By 1868, The ROCHDALE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IS well established in South Australia and  from records so far found, it existed in Illawarra and other NSW area.  

ROCHDALE LINKS;

• http://www.historycooperative.org/proceedings/asslh/balnave.html

PAPER BY PATMORE AND BALNAVE

EXTRACT

British immigrants played an important role in bringing the Rochdale principles to Australia. Retail 
co-operatives became a feature of coalmining districts such as the Hunter Valley, the Illawarra, the Lithgow Valley, Wonthaggi in Victoria and Collie in Western Australia. There were Rochdale co-operatives outside these areas. Particularly notable was the Adelaide society, which opened in 1868 and had 9,412 members by 1923.

• http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/aug/07/retail.uknews

 

• http://www.wcml.org.uk/timeline/1844/

ROCHDALE RIOTS

Thanks to MARK GREGORY’s research, we have been led to a 1795 verse from the ROCHDALE FOOD RIOTS in the UK. This forms the chorus and partial verse of Melinda’s  COLLIER’S STRIKE SONG which is written about an ILLAWARRA COAL STRIKE.

The ROCHDALE  BUROUGH WIDE CULTURAL TRUST WEBSITE informs us that they located the verse on a typewritten piece of paper in their archives which a long ago librarian had typed up. At this time, that’s all the details we have. Mark and his compatriots see an indication of the ongoing thread of working class folklorist tradition extending to Melinda’s song.

Below are some  articles referring to the situation in Rochdale in 1795.

Whitehall Evening Post (London, England), Saturday, July 11, 1795; Issue 7593

The MORNING POST and FASHIONABLE WORLD of AUGUST 6 1795 reported riots in which three people were killed  by the VOLUNTEERS. The riots continued after the letters had left.

The COURIER AND EVENING GAZETTE of AUGUST 11(LONDON ENGLAND) gave the names and details of the men killed. One was 80 years old and in no way connected with the riots and other by the name of FLETCHER was equally uninvolved. A boy had his arm broken and many more were wounded by the VOLUNTEER FENCIBLES.

FROM THE STAR Star (London, England), Monday, August 24, 1795; Issue 2189.

ROCHDALE AND THE 1795 FOOD RIOTS ON LINK4LIFE

http://www.link4life.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=c.showPage&pageID=310

ROCHDALE RIOTS.

 

Another contemporary verse records the feelings of the working people who were facing wage reductions at a time when bread prices were high.

The masters they are grumbling in country and in town
They want to starve the workers by keeping wages down.
Now in some parts of England the men were standing out
Against a great reduction and they’re right without a doubt.
In this happy country, man is treated like a slave
When the master gets the profit and the worker gets the work.
You’ve no right to be happy, no right to be well fed,
If they drop our wages, they must drop the price of bread.

 

MUDCAT CAFE       http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=118416&messages=4

Discussion on COLLIER’S STRIKE SONG.  WITH MARK GREGORY. 

AND Folklorist Graham Seal writes:

It looks like an adaptation of a song or poem said to be related to the 3rd August 1795 food riot in Rochdale. If so, a good example of the continuity of folk tradition.

COMPARE THE 1795 VERSE WITH MELINDA’S SONG:

The Colliers’ Strike Song
    A Song by Melinda Kendall 1885

    Come all ye jolly colliers, and colliers’ wives as well,
    And listen to my ditty, for the truth I mean to tell;
    It’s of a colliers’ wage dispute, is the burden of my song;
    I mean to cheer you up, if it won’t detain you long.
    For masters they are grumbling, in country and in town,
    They want to starve poor miners, by cutting wages down;
    But if you stick together, and every one be true,
    You are sure to be triumphant  singing cock-a-doodle-doo.

    Chorus:
    For masters they are grumbling, in country and in town,
    They want to starve poor miners, by cutting wages down;
    But if you stick together, and every one be true,
    You are sure to be triumphant  singing cock-a-doodle-doo.

    The miners of Mount Kembla, oh! loudly how they shout
    Against this drop of ten percent, they’re right without a doubt;
    In this happy, glorious country, man is treated like a Turk,
    Where the masters get the profit, and the miners get the work.
    We only want fair wages, we only want fair play,
    We know we ought to have a good dinner every day;
    But what are we to do when the butcher he comes round,
    If we let our masters drop two shillings in the pound.

    Just ask a blessed woman what she is going to do,
    From the present price of wages we cannot save a screw
    With a lot of little children, with pieces, hungry teeth;
    If they drop our wages, they must also drop the price of beef.
    For every woman knows the task she has to meet,
    With a lot of little mouths, and nothing much to eat;
    But it can’t be very different, it’s very plain to tell,
    Where the masters get the oyster, and the miners get the shell.

    I would have you stick together, and have a good go in,
    Be true to one another, and I’m sure you’re bound to win;
    Though money is so valuable  and so is labour, too
    The working man is worth whatever he may do.
    And I hope that every woman will tell her husband too;
    She will do her very best to help him to keep true;
    They will be sure to raise the wine, and make the masters say
    “The devil’s in the women, for they never will give way.”

    Notes

    Published in Illawarra Mercury, October 3, 1885

 

MARK GREGORY AND THE UNION SONGS

http://unionsong.com/

I found MARK GREGORY’s UNION SONGS a good while back and with my Belmore Railway and carpentry background I identified strongly and quickly. Mark has now contacted us and added a new dimension to Melinda’s work with specific focus on her working class fire and passion.

This is what Mark says as he opens his site:

More than 640 songs and poems, over 260 Authors

Call them rebel songs, slave songs, songs of freedom, work songs, songs of dissent, songs of struggle, protest songs, liberation songs, labour songs, labor songs, workers songs, industrial folk songs, environmental songs, songs of equality, peace songs.

For over two centuries working people across the world have built trade unions. This site documents the songs and poems that they made in the process, union songs. It includes songs and poems that are being written today, as the process of union building continues all around the world.
Such songs are the work of famous poets as well as men and women whose names have been forgotten. They stretch back to ancient times and are being created today.

‘Songs are very strange. Why is a song like Pound A Week Rise – rescued from my personal “scrapheap”, because it was about a miners’ wage claim in 1962 and I did not think it relevant in the 70s, by Dick Gaughan in about 1975 – still recorded by Americans, Australians etc – I always say there is no such thing as an old song because it is new to someone if they have not heard it before.’
Ed Pickford

http://unionsong.com/

still looking for MELINDA

http://alphainventions.com/

And thinking there is a chance through this resource. Anyone out there know something we have missed about MELINDA MCNALLY KENDALL.

http://alphainventions.com/

MARYBOROUGH FIELD TRIP

Prospects are now forming of a trip to MARYBOROUGH. Mary Josephine, Melinda’s daughter, went to live in Maryborough with her husband, Mr Yates and she died there in 1881 in her early 30s. The next field trip looks promising and perhaps there will be some YATES descendants with information we have not yet found. It seems probable to RA that a mother and grandmother would write to a daughter at such a distance moreso than the family living close by. Queensland here we come !

CONDITIONAL PARDON FOR PATRICK

TRANSCRIBED.

WHEREAS, HIS LATE MOST EXCELLENCY MAJESTY KING GEORGE THE THIRD, by a Commission under the GREAT SEAL of GREAT BRITAIN, bearing date the Eighth Day of November in the Thirty First year of His MAJESTY’s Reign, was graciously pleased to Give and Grant full Power and Authority to the Governor( or in case of his death or absence, the Lieutenant-Governor) for the time being of His Majesty’s Territory of the Eastern Coast of New South Wales, and the Islands hereunto adjacent, by an Instrument or Instruments in Writing, under the Seal of the Government of the said Territory, or as he or they respectively should think fit and convenient for His Majesty’s Service, to Remit, either Absolutely or Conditionally, the Whole or any Part of the Term or Time for which Persons convicted of Felony, Misdemeanour, or other offences, amenable to the Laws of Great Britain, should have been , or should thereafter be respectively Conveyed or Transported to New South Wales or the Islands thereunto adjacent.

BY VIRTUE of such Power and Authority so vested as aforesaid, I, Sir George Gipps Knight, Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief of Her Majesty’s said Territory of New South Wales and its Dependencies, and Vice-Admiral of the same, taking into consideration the good conduct of Patrick McNally, who arrived in this Colony in the ship, Surry I – Raine – Master,  in the Year One Thousand Eight Hundred and Fourteen under Sentence of Transportation for Life  and whose description is on the bakc hereof, Do hereby Conditionally Remit the remainder of the Term or Time which is yet to come and unexpired of the Original Sentence at Chambly C’Martial  on the twenty first Day of October One Thousand eight hundred and twelve.

Provided Always, and on Condition, that the said Patrick McNally,  continue to reside within the Limits of this Government for and during the space of his  Original Sentence or Order of transportation:- Otherwise the said Patrick McNally  shall be subject to all the Pains and Penalties Re-appearing in Great Britain and Ireland ,for and during the term of  his  Original Sentence or Order of Transportation; or, as if this Remission had never been granted.

GIVEN under my hand and the Seal of the Territory, at Government House, Sydney in New South Wales, this First  day of July  in the Year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and  forty three.

(Signed) Geo Gipps

By His Excellency’s Command,

(Signed)  E. ? Thompson.