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Description: | Song about an imaginary trip for gold. Perhaps songs such as this reassured audiences that the search for gold was worth the effort. Emigration from Britain in the first half of the nineteenth century was generally associated with paupers and criminals and only taken up when faced with extreme hardship. America however, was regarded as a rather more fashionable destination than some of the colonies and in the 1830s and 1840s a number of emigration societies were formed. The discovery of gold in America and then in Victoria, Australia in 1854, also brought a rush of emigration to what had previously been unpopular destinations. On Tyneside a number of men chose to leave their native shores, most likely in the face of unemployment, or gruelling industrial labour with long hours and low pay. The song is also found in earlier publications as 'The pitman's return from Calleyforney'.This song forms part of a selection of songs from 'Selkirk's collection of songs and ballads' currently held by the Border History Museum. The content was selected and edited by local publisher James Selkirk in 1853. The volume contains over 250 pages of songs, with contributions from local favourites such as William Mitford, Robert Emery and John Selkirk. Bound in leather, the collection was published at a time when smaller penny song books, so popular during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, were fading out and larger bound volumes such as this, which appealed to the middle classes, were becoming increasingly popular.Of the publisher, little is known. - Information at the head of a song by John Selkirk reveals that the publisher of this volume was not the James Selkirk, brother of John, who passed away in 1845, some 8 years before the publication of this collection. A mystery it appears. ; Local songs selected by Tyneside composer James Selkirk | Publisher: | James Selkirk Newcastle upon Tyne | Rights holder: | rights holder : Border History Museum | Subjects: | travel & gold rush & emigration & America travel and adventure | Temporal: | start=1841;end=1860; | Source: | Folk Archive Resource North East | Identifier: | farne:H2102001 | Go to resource |
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