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Description: | Song about an old man who is unable to get parish relief and is forced to go to the workhouse. Throughout the nineteenth century much energy had been spent on attempting to reduce the cost of poor relief. By the time this song was written, parish relief, an 'outdoor' form of relief whereby the poor could remain in their homes, had dramatically reduced and the workhouse had been placed at the centre of provision. To further discourage reliance on poor relief it was decided that workhouse conditions should be worse than the lowest standards of the independent labourer. It was hoped that paupers would be deterred from a reliance on the workhouse by the harsh treatment of the inmates and the conditions within. From BBC History - Welfare. This song is testament to the harsh treatment of the unfortunates who were forced to rely on poor relief at the end of the nineteenth century.This song forms a selection of dialect pieces written in the eighteenth and nineteenth century by various Cumberland authors and composers. The book was published in London, by George Routledge and Sons, in 1866 and contains offerings from some of Cumberland's most celebrated composers. Keith Gregson, in his introduction to 'Cumbrian songs and ballads', gives a concise account of songs and ballads in Cumberland during the nineteenth century. The period was, he says, 'bounded in terms of songs and ballads in the border counties, by the works of Robert Burns to the north and those of Geordie Ridley, Joe Wilson and Ned Corvan to the east. During the heart of the period itself, the songwriters of Cumbria - Robert Anderson and Susanna Blamire, in particular - had important contributions to make to the British song and ballad world. Composing words and setting them to the popular tunes of the day ... these Cumbrians left many songs of merit which have since been neglected'.Many of the songs in this and other Cumbrian songbooks do of course have strong Scottish influences and most of the tunes to which they were sung were undoubtedly Scottish. However the majority of the songs still reflect the nature of Cumberland life at the time and for this reason alone are valuable in their own right. A particularly isolated county, Cumberland has a strongly preserved dialect and the rural nature of the area is reflected in songs which centre around relationships between market and farm, man and woman, and the surrounding landscape. ; A selection of songs by Cumberland composers | Publisher: | Geo. Routledge and Sons John Menzies Geo. Coward London ; Edinburgh ; Carlisle ; Cumbria | Rights holder: | rights holder : Newcastle University | Subjects: | Poverty workhouse & poverty Health And Welfare | Temporal: | start=1861;end=1900; | Source: | Folk Archive Resource North East | Identifier: | farne:N2439801 | Go to resource |
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