The first verse goes something like this:

THE SHEFFIELD GRINDER'S A TERRIBLE BLADE TALLY-HO THE GRINDER HE SENDS HIS LITTLE ONES DOWN TO TRADE TALLY-HO THE GRINDER

Does this sound familiar to any of you?

Magpie

(Originally, The Grinders, or, The Saddle on the Right Horse)

The Sheffield grinder's a terrible blade.
Tally hi-o, the grinder!
He sets his little'uns down to trade.
Tally hi-o, the grinder!
He turns his baby to grind in the hull,
Till his body is stunted and his eyes are dull,
And the brains are dizzy and dazed in his skull.
Tally hi-o, the grinder!

He shortens his life and he hastens his death.
Tally hi-o, the grinder!
Will drink steel dust in every breath.
Tally hi-o, the grinder!
Won't use a fan as he turns his wheel.
Won't wash his hands ere he eats his meal.
But dies as he lives, as hard as steel.
Tally hi-o, the grinder!

These Sheffield grinders of whom we speak.
Tally hi-o, the grinder!
Are men who earn a pound a week.
Tally hi-o, the grinder!
But of Sheffield grinders another sort
Methinks ought to be called in court,
And that is the grinding Government Board.
Tally hi-o, the grinder!

At whose door lies the blacker blame?
Tally hi-o, the grinder!
Where rests the heavier weight of shame?
Tally hi-o, the grinder!
On the famine-price contractor's head,
Or the workman's, under-taught and -fed,
Who grinds his own bones and his child's for his bread?
Tally hi-o, the grinder!

A.L. Lloyd gave the text in Folk Song in England (1967) and commented:

"Throughout the [19th] century conditions had been very hard in the cutlery trade, and they worsened in the 1860s, when the Government was accepting tenders for Sheffield goods, intended for army use, at prices that could only be met by employing children in large numbers in the works.  The Victorian Liberal conscience suffered some twinges at the plight of the grinders' families, and inquiry commissions were set up which reported, as such commissions will, that the misery was in good part the fault of the workers themselves.  The Sheffield men, who had cherished a fierce Radical tradition since the days when they were secretly making pikes for the Jacobins and Luddites, expressed their sharp criticism of grasping manufacturers and grinding Government, and their scorn of mealy-mouthed Social Science in a number of songs of which The grinders, or The saddle on the right horse, is a fair specimen."

The song also appears, with its tune, in  The South Riding Song Book  (South Riding Folk Network, 1998); I'll make a midi of the tune for the  Mudcat Midi Pages.

Malcolm

Thanks again!

Magpie

'Tally i o the grinder' is a comic song about marital incompatibility, and its tune was obviously intended for our song. I have been unable to trace it, however, and I have used a version of the poaching song, 'Thorney Moor Woods', which has a similar metre (collected by E.J. Moeran 'Journal of the Folk Song Society, 7, p 14, adapted). [R.Palmer 'Poverty Knock' p63].

I recall the song from a Nick Jones, Tony Rose and Jon Raven record called 'Songs of a Changing World' - of which I still have a tape somewhere. Great stuff, but I don't think the album has made it to CD. As someone has pointed out - I don't recall where; it wasn't Palmer -the last stanza of this song is perhaps unique among English industrial folk song in that there is a suggestion that the worker may be partly responsible for his plight.

--Stewie.

--Stewie.

--Stewie.

Cheers,
Alan