The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #28300 Message #3222858
Posted By: Bob Bolton
13-Sep-11 - 09:27 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: A Starry Night for a Ramble (Beers Family
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: A Starry Night for a Ramble (Beers Family
G'day GUEST / 20 Aug 11 - 07:36 AM,
The broadsheets cited above, from Ron Edwards research trip in the 1980s, were widely published in the 'mid-1850s' ... all round Britain and Ireland.
I gather there is at least one dateable printing from a London song sheet printer in 1854. This suggests why it remained such a 'nostalgic' song for the descendants of those who came to Australia in the "Gold Rushes", from ~1852 onwards.
Samuel Bagnal may well have printed a copy a generation ro so later ... but the original clearly pre-dates "the 1870s". The Beers Family (re-worked) version almost certainly has a parallel path from the slightly earlier Americam Gold Rush.