A Song from Hampshire, collected by DR. George Gardiner.

Tim Radford

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The Owslebury Lads
The thirteenth of November, eighteen hundred and thirty,
The Owslebury lads they did prepare all for the machinery,
And when they did get there, my eye! how they let fly,
The machinery flew to pieces in the twinkling of an eye.

Chorus
The mob, such a mob, you have never seen before,
And if you live for a hundred years you never will no more.

0 then to Winchester we were sent, our trial for to take,
And if we do have nothing said, our counsel we shall keep;
But when the judges did begin, I'm sorry for to say
So many there was transported for life and some was cast to die.

Some times our parents they comes in all for to see us all,
Some times they bring tobaccy or a loaf that is so small;
Then we goes into the kitchen and sits all around about,
There is so many of us in there that we all be soon smoked out.

At six o'clock in the morning our turnkey he comes in
With a bunch of keys all in his hand tied up all in a string,
And we can't get any further than back across the yard,
With a pound and a half of bread a day,
Now don't you think that hard?

At six o'clock in the evening the turnkey he comes round,
The locks and bolts do rattle like the sounding of a drum,
And we are all locked up again all in our cells so high,
And there we stay till morning, whether we live or die.

And now for to conclude and finish with my song,
1 trust you gentlemen round me will think that I'm not wrong,
And all the poor in Hampshire for rising of their wages
I hope that none of our enemies will ever want for places.


Collected from James Stagg, Winchester - March 1906 (H204)
Really in 1830 not 1813.