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Description: | Comic song in which a pitman, whilst drinking in Newcastle, sees the face of the Cathedral clock illuminated for the first time. Thinking the clock is on fire the pitman cries for water. Allan's Tyneside Songs reveals that the dial of the clock was first illuminated with gas on 5th December, 1829. Following a violent storm the dial was blown out on 19th October, 1862 and had to be re-lit the following month.The author of this song, Robert Nunn, was a slater by trade. Losing his sight in an industrial accident Nunn turned to music as a means to support his family. An accomplished fiddler and good singer, Nunn composed a number of well known local songs, which he sung with much success. Robert Nunn died at Queen Street, Newcastle on 2nd May, 1853 aged forty-five years.This book contains some of the region's best known traditional songs. From 'Hydrophobie' to 'The pitman's skellyskope', the book has offerings from well known Tyneside composers such as Robert Emery and would have been extremely popular among the local population.Similar to the cheap press of today these poorly printed books and broadsides catered for popular tastes, being sold by chapmen in the country and booksellers in the town. Usually sold for no more than a penny, the production of these little books and broadsides were extremely profitable for most printers. Sold in bulk the material required little proof-reading, was widely plagiarised, and badly printed.Newcastle was the second largest producer of chapbooks in the country at the time of this book's publication. 'Songs of the Tyne' were a short series of chapbooks originally printed by, J. Ross of the Royal Arcade. This book forms no.3 of the 'Songs of the Tyne' series and was reprinted by William Walker sometime between 1857 and 1866. Most of the songs in the book were first printed in the 1830s and 1840s although some, such as 'The pitman's courtship', did infact appear as early as 1816. ; Popular Tyneside songs published in chapbook form. | Publisher: | J. Walker Royal Arcade, Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear | Rights holder: | rights holder : Newcastle University | Subjects: | miners & drinking & churches & cathedrals buildings and views local characters and strange events & landscapes | Temporal: | start=1841;end=1860; | Source: | Folk Archive Resource North East | Identifier: | farne:N1500902 | Go to resource |
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