From Mainly Norfolk;
Fourpence a Day was collected by Joan Littlewood and Ewan MacColl from John Gowland, retired lead miner in Middleton-in-Teesdale, in 1948. It was printed in Peggy Seeger's and Ewan MacColl's 1960 book on English and Scottish Folksongs, The Singing Island. The second Topic album's notes said: Still current in North-East Yorkshire, this song is attributed to Thomas Raine, lead-miner and bard of Teesdale.

From mysongbook.de;
From Joan Littlewood, Joan's Book (1994); Well, at least Teesdale was new to me [as the subject of a BBC radio programme by J. L.]. I amused myself collecting fragments of an old song and got Jimmie [Ewan MacColl] a job completing it:

Fourpence a day, my lads, and verra hard to wark
With never a pleasant look from a scruffy-looking Turk
His heart it may fail, his conscience may give way
And he'll raise us our wages to fivepence a day