Tune Req: Looking for 'Maxfield Hunt' tune

Subject: Tune Req: Looking for 'Maxfield Hunt' tune
From: Mark Dowding
Date: 03 Aug 11 - 07:46 AM

I'm looking for a tune called "Maxfield Hunt" if anyone can help me please?
It's mentioned as the tune for a song called "The Crown and the People's League" by Elijah Ridings and it's one of the ballads in the Rylands' Library collection that Chris Pollington and I are looking at with a view to producing a CD of selected ballads for them. Whilst the project is similar to "Manchester Ballads", we are concentrating on the Manchester printers rather than Manchester as a subject matter although one or two of the ballads are from the area.

Thanks in anticipation of someone coming up trumps with this tune.

Cheers
Mark

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Looking for 'Maxfield Hunt' tune
From: Mark Dowding
Date: 05 Aug 11 - 02:47 AM

refresh

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Looking for 'Maxfield Hunt' tune
From: GUEST,999
Date: 05 Aug 11 - 02:59 AM

(198)



THE CROWN AND THE PEOPLE'S LEAGUE.

A SONG, TUNE, " MAXFIELD HUNT."

Lord Derby came to Windsor's towers,

A noble, bold and strong,
To rally old Protection's powers,

A little, busy throng.
Victoria sate in royal chair,

With heart that own'd no guile,
And she received the Stanley there,

Between a frown and smile.

" Thou com'st, bold Peer," Victoria said,

" Since Russell's gone from me ;
Take care my people want not bread,

And I'll be true to thee :
I've been through city, borough, town,

And found them hale and true ;
Within their hearts is fix'd my crown,

Then rightful course pursue."

A spirit whisper'd in her ear,

And sacred voices came,
With heavenly music, her to cheer,

And thrill'd her living frame :
Her people in a League combine,

Responding to the song,
And in one chorus, grand, divine,

The joyous strains prolong.

Alone for royal, noble birth,

Such bounties are not given,
As spring spontaneous from the earth,

The precious gifts of Heaven :

##################################################


Mark, I have looked and can find no tune entitled Maxfield Hunt.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Looking for 'Maxfield Hunt' tune
From: Helen
Date: 05 Aug 11 - 05:45 PM

Hi Mark,

I've done a bit of a Google, and I'm wondering if Maxfield Hunt is the composer of the tune, rather than the name of the tune. I just looked at a digitised version of the book, hoping there might be a tune there, but no such luck.

Helen

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Looking for 'Maxfield Hunt' tune
From: GUEST,999
Date: 05 Aug 11 - 05:53 PM

Helen, brilliant!

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Looking for 'Maxfield Hunt' tune
From: Helen
Date: 05 Aug 11 - 06:39 PM

Yes, but does my alleged "brilliance" (thanks for the compliment) help to find the tune?

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Looking for 'Maxfield Hunt' tune
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Aug 11 - 06:46 PM

I've been lookin;, and I'm comin' up empty. Heck of an idea, though.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Looking for 'Maxfield Hunt' tune
From: Jack Campin
Date: 05 Aug 11 - 07:41 PM

I haven't found anything either but this sidetrack is a doozy:

God Multiplied Our Gasoline

Your words fit "The British Grenadiers" perfectly, so I'd guess the tune is a quick march. Maybe a hunt through the brass band literature known in Manchester at the time might help?

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Looking for 'Maxfield Hunt' tune
From: GUEST,999
Date: 05 Aug 11 - 08:17 PM

I just sent off an e-mail that may bear fruit--or better yet, a direction. I'll post when and/or if.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Looking for 'Maxfield Hunt' tune
From: Mark Dowding
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 02:47 AM

Thanks for the suggestions you've all given. I would say that "Maxfield Hunt" is the title of the tune rather than the composer as Helen suggests.
I'll keep the thread refreshed so that people coming back from festivals can have a look.
Cheers
Mark

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Looking for 'Maxfield Hunt' tune
From: Jack Campin
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 09:06 AM

My guess was the tune was named after a gentlemen's foxhunting and boozing club, as with the well-known tune "The Caledonian Hunt's Delight".

Something Google isn't being very helpful with: where is the relevant Maxfield? There's a small place near Weston-Super-Mare, and I find references to a Lord Maxfield from the 18th century, but that village is surely too small to have a barony. Where did Lord Maxfield get his title from? - chances are any hunt named after him will have ridden and socialized near there. But I can't see any connection between the name and the Manchester area.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Looking for 'Maxfield Hunt' tune
From: Mark Dowding
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 10:28 AM

A suggestion is that it is a corruption of "The Macclesfield Hunt" and there is a Maxfield Road in Macclesfield. Bearing in mind that Elijah Ridings was from Failsworth nr Manchester, it seems logical that he should use a local hunt song/tune. Further investigation is under way to see if the Macclesfield Hunt tune fits the words to "The Crown and the People's League" as written above.

There is also a Maxfield in Oxfordshire as well the Avon one that Jack mentions above.

Cheers
Mark

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Looking for 'Maxfield Hunt' tune
From: Jack Campin
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 11:09 AM

Probably not this

Macclesfield hunt from 2007

I wonder if it's this one?

Cheshire Quick Step

Dating from 1802, that would have been the march of the Cheshire local militia. Upper-class plonkers who would have been looking for something equally useless to do on horseback after the war ended. Adopting a local tune from their days of (rather limited) glory would make sense. You would have to simplify some of the fife-oriented twiddles but basically the tune fits.