Tune Req: Cruel Sea Captain and Nancy of Yarmouth

Subject: Tune Req: CRUEL SEA CAPTAIN AND NANCY OF YARMOUTH
From: Nick Dow
Date: 20 Jul 25 - 06:41 AM

It has Roud21885 as its reference. I am attempting to find some reference to a tune, and hoping the BS will have some reference. I can not get into the Madden Collection and the Bodleian is offline. The words do fit the regular Nancy of Yarmouth tune, but I thought I would ask. It was only collected once with text only.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: CRUEL SEA CAPTAIN AND NANCY OF YARMOUTH
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 20 Jul 25 - 08:14 AM

Nick, I have 5 different printings of the ballad all with the same 9 double stanzas, but none of them give a designated tune. The text though was written by George Brown in London.

For what it's worth the 5 printers I have copies of are Harkness of Preston, Ross of Newcastle, Ford of Chesterfield, Keys of Devonport and the likely earliest, who Brown wrote it for presumably, Taylor of London.
It's not in Catnach's 1832 catalogue or Pitts 1836 catalogue so I'd guess Taylor printed it about 1840 followed by Ford and then Ross.


Williamson of Newcastle also printed it but I don't have that copy.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: CRUEL SEA CAPTAIN AND NANCY OF YARMOUTH
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 20 Jul 25 - 08:15 AM

If it's any use I can give you the titles of some of Brown's other pieces which we have the tunes for as it's quite likely he recycled his tunes.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: CRUEL SEA CAPTAIN AND NANCY OF YARMOUTH
From: cnd
Date: 20 Jul 25 - 10:29 AM

I'm not nearly as knowledgeable at this stuff, but if I'm reading it right, I believe there may be a typo in the introductory post: Roud 21885 brings up The Ploughboy ("Come all you jolly ploughing boys"), while 21884 returns The Cruel Sea Captain.

Sorry that my only help is a trivial correction, but figured it'd be worth pointing out

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Cruel Sea Captain and Nancy of Yarmouth
From: Nick Dow
Date: 21 Jul 25 - 12:48 PM

That looks like a typical Nick Dow mistake! Sorry

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Cruel Sea Captain and Nancy of Yarmouth
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 21 Jul 25 - 02:44 PM

That's the sort of correction I thrive on! Cheers cnd. That could have saved me lots of searching.