The Bradshaw Chorus (aka White Cockade)

Subject: The Bradshaw Chorus (aka White Cockade)
From: rich-joy
Date: 29 Apr 20 - 10:11 AM

I realise that this is a song that has been discussed at length on Mudcat over the years, but mostly in reference to Cockades and their colours, it seems. My query really concerns an alternative title.

I recall reading years ago that the old English song known as “The White Cockade” was also known as “The Bradshaw Chorus”.
(NB as in “…He ad-van-ced…” and NOT the Scottish “He’s a ranting, roving blade” Jacobite number!)

As I’ve not yet found any data online about this, can any Catters say if this is correct AND to which “Bradshaw” location does it refer??

Further Background :
Apparently the English “White Cockade” has also been known as “My Love Has Listed” and “As I Roved Out One Morning” and “The Soldier’s Farewell (with different tune), but more particularly as “The Summer’s Morning”.
This latter is found online at Poets’ Corner in the 1846 edition of The Percy Society’s “Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of England” ed. James Henry Dixon (Introduction Robert Bell) and is the version (possibly collected in Durham), referencing “The Hollanders”, thereby dating the song post the Anglo-Dutch Wars (first three 1652-1674; the fourth 1780-1784).
It also describes the song thus : “This is a very old ditty and a favourite with the peasantry in every part of England, but more particularly in the mining districts of the North …..”

Thanks for any help,
Cheers,
R-J

Subject: RE: The Bradshaw Chorus (aka White Cockade)
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 29 Apr 20 - 10:58 AM

My money would be on Bradshaw near Halifax. The West Yorkshire hunt communities have a tradition of giving songs such names. For instance 'Pleasant and Delightful' is known by them as 'Castle Hill Anthem' and 'Abroad for Pleasure' is known as 'Holmfirth Anthem'.

Subject: RE: The Bradshaw Chorus (aka White Cockade)
From: rich-joy
Date: 29 Apr 20 - 06:22 PM

Thanks very much for that info, Steve.
So you can confirm that an alternative name for The White Cockade IS "The Bradshaw Chorus"? - it's not my skewed memory?!

Also meant to write "..... thereby dating the song post the Anglo-Dutch Wars (first three 1652-1674), but potentially before the fourth (1780-1784) - or soon after."   Apologies.

Cheers,
R-J

Subject: RE: The Bradshaw Chorus (aka White Cockade)
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 30 Apr 20 - 10:41 AM

http://www.yorkshirefolksong.net/song.cfm?songID=2

Hopefully that link will take you to my notes to the song's survival in Yorkshire

I've not come across a version by that title though.

Subject: RE: The Bradshaw Chorus (aka White Cockade)
From: r.padgett
Date: 30 Apr 20 - 12:25 PM

Yes I would agree with Steve Gardham Bradshaw Chorus would be Halifax ~

John Bromley I suspect will know ~ Pleasant and Delightful and Castle Hill anthem are two different songs telling the same story of course

Ray

Subject: RE: The Bradshaw Chorus (aka White Cockade)
From: rich-joy
Date: 30 Apr 20 - 09:17 PM

Thank you both!

However, I have just located a post by Catter "Scowie", who it seems was around 2009-2011 (don't know HOW I missed it before!) and they wrote (in the Odd Pub Names thread in 2009):
"Not had a mention yet is the unique "The House Without a Name" at Bradshaw near Bolton.My father who died ten years ago remembers the "Bradshaw Chorus" (He Advance-ed me a shilling, a shilling from the Crown) being sung there as a boy.I have seen the song mentioned as thus in old publications."

Of course this still doesn't prove it was evolved in Lancashire instead of Yorkshire (and not being from the British Isles, I'm not gonna go there!). I have NO idea now, just where I read about "The Bradshaw Chorus"; that's sadly lost in the mists of time, along with my youth, LoL!

I've just tried Google yet again and I don’t quite know how it works, but New-Old Things keep appearing!! :

"The Teesdale Mercury" on 20May1914 reports in its "Pickings from Punch" that : "The singing of the Bradshaw Chorus make up / broke up (?) a happy evening" - Local paper" - which could of course be merely referring to group of singers.

TURTON Through the Ages : Local History Society publication : “p30 Bradshaw Chorus (music sheet)” (sounds promising!) So that’s the Bolton, Lancs, Bradshaw then …..

The Univ of Sussex has in its collections : “Song Sheet, ms, 1p, hand written music score and verses of song "Bradshaw Chorus", Royal Oak Lodge, Bradshaw” So still Bolton, Lancs. Is that a Pub or a Masonic Lodge, I wonder?

However, Kennedy’s Folk-Trax recording #518 has a version of “The White Cockade” by a group near Richmond, West Yorks (is that near Teesdale?). Amongst his many references to versions of the song is : "The Bradshaw Chorus " - POLWARTH FSFTN 1970 pp24-25 - which I believe to be Gwen Marchant-Polwarth’s Folk Songs of the North? published Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. I don’t have access to a copy of that.

So it seems it’s hard to be conclusive from this great distance (both in miles and in time), if this alternative title for “The White Cockade” is of Yorkshire or Lancashire origin (!) but that’s okay; they’re both beautiful parts of a beautiful country (even if my heritage is more Lancky!!)

Cheers!,
R-J

Subject: RE: The Bradshaw Chorus (aka White Cockade)
From: GUEST,Georgina Boyes
Date: 01 May 20 - 05:37 AM

If any song was particularly popular in a village it seems to have been called their 'anthem'. The carol "Peace O'er the World" was called "The Bradda' Anthem" because it was so popular in the village of Bradwell in Derbyshire.

Subject: RE: The Bradshaw Chorus (aka White Cockade)
From: GUEST,Georgina Boyes
Date: 01 May 20 - 05:41 AM

And I think "Reight dahn in t' Coil Oil" used to be called "The Barnsley Anthem".

Subject: RE: The Bradshaw Chorus (aka White Cockade)
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 01 May 20 - 06:27 AM

Your Lancashire connection seems to be the more likely now.

However as mentioned above our website (Yorkshire Garland) mentions the Version sung by the Redmire Singers (Probably your Teesdale performers), which I suppose would have been something like a male voice choir, and these northern village choirs were in touch with each other, and swapped songs, and indeed referred to songs that they received a version from as that village's 'anthem', 'chorus' etc. The song itself exists in many versions in England. On our folk scene it is mainly referred to as The White Cockade but early versions covered the whole spectrum of coloured cockades. The earliest I have is late 18th century.

The Polwarths' version is very probably the Newcastle version which tends to be sung a lot faster (jig time?) than in other parts of the country. I have 3 of the little Polwarth books but unfortunately not that one. I'll look out for it now I know it exists.

I'm now interested in this version from Bradshaw, Lancashire, as I specialise in song histories. I would certainly like a look at their version.

BTW a Durham version was printed in Dixon's Ancient Poems about 1846 and this would have helped to spread the song, as well as the many broadsides. In various nineteenth century Yorkshire Anthologies versions were published.

Subject: RE: The Bradshaw Chorus (aka White Cockade)
From: rich-joy
Date: 01 May 20 - 08:37 AM

Thank you all for your help - and Good Luck, Steve, in your Lancashire investigations.

I'll be interested to hear too, what the tune variations might be. Until I started investigating this song, I was really only familiar with the version popularised by The Watersons, and I am a little hampered by not reading music, so I rely on You Tube recordings greatly!

Cheers,
R-J

Subject: RE: The Bradshaw Chorus (aka White Cockade)
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 01 May 20 - 10:32 AM

I think the Watersons (which is the version I have mostly sung with bits and pieces picked up by osmosis from other versions) got their version from Kidson's Traditional Tunes where there are 2 similar versions of the tune.

Subject: RE: The Bradshaw Chorus (aka White Cockade)
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 03 May 20 - 05:01 AM

From 1915 to 1918, Cicely Fox Smith lived at 49 Dene Bank, Bradshaw, overlooking Bradshaw Cricket Club.

The club started playing behind 'The House without a Name' - mentioned above - in the 1860s. And I believe that Scowie - Keith Scowcroft - lives not far away.

Subject: RE: The Bradshaw Chorus (aka White Cockade)
From: GUEST,Rozza
Date: 10 Jan 23 - 01:55 PM

The sleeve notes from the Watersons' "Yorkshire Garland" LP states that their version was "an amplification of a set found in Yorkshire by Nigel and Mary Huddleston."

Subject: RE: The Bradshaw Chorus (aka White Cockade)
From: Reinhard
Date: 10 Jan 23 - 02:16 PM

... but not very different from Kidson if you quote a bit more from A.L.Lloyd's Yorkshire Garland sleeve notes:

More than a hundred years ago this song was being spoken of as “a favourite with the peasantry in every part of England but more particularly in the mining districts of the North”. A soap-boiler and vitriol manufacturer, Thomas Doubleday (who was also a fine pioneer folk song collector) heard it sung by a street ballad singer in Newcastle and he sent a copy to Blackwood's Magazine, who published it in 1821. Every version found since then is so close to Doubleday's, that it looks as if the song's early appearance in print quite fixed its form for ever. Frank Kidson noted a version from his mother “who heard it sung in Leeds about the year 1820”, but it's the Newcastle set, word for word, and note for note. More or less identical is this present version, an amplification of a set found in Yorkshire by Nigel and Mary Hudleston.

Subject: RE: The Bradshaw Chorus (aka White Cockade)
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Jan 23 - 06:15 AM

According to mudcat correspondence.. A.L.Lloyd's scholarship is challengeable

Subject: RE: The Bradshaw Chorus (aka White Cockade)
From: r.padgett
Date: 11 Jan 23 - 09:22 AM

Michael Pollard's book says "White Cockade was first collected in 1820 by a Newcastle antiquary who had it published in Blackwood's Magazine"
The song passed into tradition and survived the rest of the century with subsequent collected versions little change. The regiment he maintains would likely be Northumberland Fusiliers

Ray

Pollard ~ Pergamon Press Ltd 1969 Library of Congress Catalog Card 68~ 55958
08~ 013234 0 ? ISBN