Lyr Add: The Annie Jane

Subject: Lyr Add: THE ANNIE JANE
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 01 Nov 06 - 08:27 PM

An emigrant ballad about emigrants that didn't make it.

Lyr. Add: THE ANNIE JANE
(Air- Mary Neal (several tunes used)

You landsmen all pray lend an ear, to this my dismal tale,
Concerning the wreck of the Annie Jane, which from Liverpool did
sail;
It was for Quebec she was bound, across the raging main,
With four hundred & fifty souls on board, the ill-fated Annie Jane.

One hundred smiths and joiners, to Scotland did belong,
To work on the Quebec railway, they being young and strong;
From England and from Ireland, the rest of them they came,
They little thought they'd lose their lives in the ill-fated Annie Jane.

With lightsome hearts we bore away, not thinking danger nigh,
Till the third day a storm arose, and dismal was the sky;
Our masts and rigging were blown away into the raging main,
Who can describe our suffering great, in the ill-fated Annie Jane.

A petition from the passengers, the Captain did implore,
For to return to Liverpool and tempt the seas no more;
Our petition, by the Captain was treated with disdain,
In the dead of night he put about the ill-fated Annie Jane.

On the morning of the twenty-ninth, our ship was run ashore,
The wind it blew a hurricane, and the billows loud did roar;
Each struggled hard amidst the waves, their lives to maintain,
But three hundred and forty-eight were lost, with the ill-fated Annie Jane.

Our vessel then to pieces went, whene'er she struck the ground,
Our cries for help did rend the air, but alas no help was found;
My language fails for to describe, the horrors of that scene,
Each wave swept hundreds to their grave, from the ill-fated Annie Jane.

A mother held her infant twins, for hours to her breast,
Death at length claimed one of them to its eternal rest;
By the assisting hand of Providence, the mother the shore did gain,
And thus escaped a watery grave in the ill-fated Annie Jane.

How many a mother laments her son, and wives their husbands dear
And many a pretty fair maid for her lover drops a tear;
And many does lament their friends, whom they'll ne'er see again,
Who alas have found a watery grave in the ill-fated Annie Jane.

Now to conclude, and make an end, of this my dismal song,
The Captain should be taken, and placed in prison strong;
If our petition he had granted, and returned back again,
Our precious lives would all been spared, and the ill-fated Annie Jane,

Mu23-yl:115, Murray Coll., Glasgow. www.cc.gla.ac.uk/courses/scottish/ballads/index.htm

"Verses on the Melancholy Loss of the above ill-fated Ship, which (on her voyage from Liverpool to Quebec) was totally Wrecked on Barra-head, on the 29th September, 1853, and Melancholy to relate, 348 Lives were Lost."
Air is given as "Mary Neal," but since several were used, I have not pointed to one. Peacock, "Songs of the Newfoundland Outports," gives a score, vol. 1, p. 216, as do Henry, Creighton and OLochlainn.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Annie Jane
From: GUEST,HughM
Date: 02 Nov 06 - 08:10 AM

Is that the shipwreck for which there is a memorial near a beach on Vatersay, near Barra?