I recorded a version of this song from the Norfolk singer Walter Pardon. His text was:


HOLD THE FORT

We Meet Today on Freedom’s Cause
We meet today in freedom’s cause
And raise our banners high.
We join our hands in Union song
To battle or to die.

CHORUS
Hold the fort, we are coming,
Union men be strong.
Side by side, keep pressing onward,
Victory will come.

Look my comrade see the Union
Banner waving high.
Reinforcements are appearing
Victory is nigh.

See our numbers still increasing
Hear the bugle blow
By our Union we shall triumph
Over every foe.

Fierce and long the battle rages
But we do not fear.
Help will come whenever it’s needed
Cheer, my comrades, cheer.


The song is mentioned in my article ‘Walter Pardon – the socio-political songs’ (Musical Traditions on-line magazine article number 54) together with this note:

‘In 1906, George Edwards, another Norfolk man, founded the Eastern Counties Agricultural Labourers' and Small Holders' Union, the forerunner of the National Union of Agricultural and Allied Workers. Several members of Walter's family, including his father and Uncle Billy, joined the Trunch branch of the Union; and Walter remembers three songs from this period. All three appeared in an undated song book, 'National Agricultural Labourers' and Rural Workers' Union Song Book' (Caxton Press, Maddermarket, Norwich), a copy of which was owned by (Walter’s) Uncle Billy. The booklet contains words to the following twenty six songs:

•        Lift Up the People's Banner (Lift up the people's banner/Now trailing in the dust) Tune: Ellacombe.
•        Strong Human Love (Strong human love! within whose steadfast will/Is always peace) Tune: Lead Kindly Light.
•        Onward, Friends of Freedom (Toilers of the nation/Thinkers of the time) Tune: Onward Christian Soldiers.
•        O Beautiful, My Country (O beautiful, my country/Be thine a nobler care) Tune: Missionary.
•        England Arise! (England arise, the long, long night is over/Faint in the east behold the dawn appear) Composer: Edward Carpenter.
•        Sons of Labour (Sons of labour keep ye moving/Onward in the march of mind) Tune: Bright the Vision that Delighted. Austria.
•        The Watchword (Shout the union cry, for the foe is nigh/Now's the time to fight for the cause) Tune: Sound the Battle Cry. Composer: R G.
•        Sons of Labour (Sons of labour, who've been battling/With the hunger moil of years) Tune: Hark the Gospel News is Sounding. Composer: R G.
•        The Coming of the Light (Hark, the sound of many voices proclaim the dawn of day/And in the glow of morning the shadows ( fade away) Tune: The Wearing of the Green. Composer: D J Nicholl.
•        Come Friends, the World Wants Mending (Come friends the world wants mendlng/Let none sit down and rest) Tune: We plough the fields and scatter.
•        Men Whose Boast it is that Ye (Men whose boast it is that ye/Come of fathers brave and free) Tune: Hark the Herald Angels Sing.
•        The Marseillaise (You sons of freedom, wake to glory/Hark! Hark! what myriads bid you rise) Words and Tune by Rouget de Lisle, 1792. (Translated by R B Sheridan).
•        The Union's Light (Stand up, ye men of labour/Who toil upon the Land) Tune: Stand Up for Jesus.
•        We Meet Today in Freedom's Cause (We meet today in freedom's cause/And raise our voices high) Tune: Hold the Fort.
•        Now Sound Ye Forth (Now sound ye forth with trumpet tone/Let all the nations fear) Tune: Ellacombe.
•        Forward All Ye Workers (Forward, all ye workers/In one cause combined) Tune: St Gertrude (Onward, Christian Soldiers).
•        Stand Like the Brave (O Workman, awake, for the strife is at hand/With right on your side, then with hope firmly stand).
•        The Old Man's Advice (My grandfather worked when he was very young/And his parents felt grieved that he should) Tune: Grandfather's Clock.
•        Hark! The Battle Cry (Hark! the battle cry is ringing Hope, within our bosom springing) Tune: Men of Harlech.
•        Come Gather, O People (Come gather, O people, for soon is the hour When princes must fall with their pomp and their power) Tune: Hearts of Oak.
•        The Fine Old English Labourer (Come lads and listen to my song, a song of hearty toil/'Tis of the English labourer, the tiller of the soil) Tune: The Fine Old Gentleman.
•        A National Anthem (God save the working man/Peasant or artisan).
•        Till We Meet Again (God be with you till we meet again/May your lot in life be brighter).
•        The Land Song (Sound the blast of Freedom boys and send it far and ide/March along to Victory for God is on our side).
•        The Red Flag (The People's flag is deepest red/It shrouded oft our martyred dead) Tune: The White Cockade, or, Maryland. Composer: J Connell.
•        When Wilt Thou Save Thy People? (When wilt Thou save Thy people/O, God of Mercy, when?) Tune: Commonwealth.’