Linn, Harry

Scotland’s Premier Comic Philosopher

According to one of his obituaries, Linn “was born and bred in Greenock… He was a quiet youth … and gave little or no promise of achievement as a professional singer. His father was a clothier in the town and his family was respected (Greenock Herald, 14 June 1890). His real name was Alexander Cumming Rutherford Crawford and he appeared under that name as a blackface comedian and clog dancer, working in a double act with his brother in the early 1860s. However, apparently he found more success as a solo act and a songwriter, and the first record of him appearing as “Harry Linn” was at the Royal Music Hall in Leith in December 1866, when The Era noted:

Mr Harry Linn is still gaining fresh laurels with his new songs which the people seem to have particular relish for, knowing that they all proceed from his own brain, and he seems untiring in his exertions to give them something new.

The Era, Dec 1866

He appeared regularly in Leith and possibly elsewhere in Scotland the next few years, establishing himself as a favourite amongst the Scottish audiences. From 1868 on he started to appear in Liverpool and elsewhere in the North, billed as “Scotch comic and dancer”.

In the late 1860s he was establishing himself as a songwriter, and in an age before copyright was particularly well enforced, was keen to defend his ownership of the songs he wrote:

Through the late 1860s and early 1870s he appeared regularly in the Midlands, Scotland and the North, particularly in his home town of Greenock, in Liverpool and Tyne & Wear. In 1874 Linn left Scotland to undertake a six-month tour of the United States.

I can find no record of him appearing in London in the 1860s or 70s, although intriguingly someone was using his name:

The Era was the main London based newspaper for the Music Hall trade and while Linn was often mentioned in reports of the so-called “provincial theatres”, it didn’t reflect the high praise he received in the Scottish and northern press. This seems to be reflected in some of the letters and adverts he placed:

The first published review of a London performance that I can find is not until 1880 – the description of his performance at The Foresters Music Hall in April 1880 seems very noncommittal, perhaps the act that went down so well in the North and Scotland didn’t work so well in the capital

Linn was not the only Scottish comic who tried and failed to make an impact in London: locally successful “Scotch comics” like James Houston, WF Frame and others all failed to transfer their regional popularity to the English capital. It was not until the turn-of-the-century and Harry Lauder that “Scotch comics” became something of a fashion.

I can find no more records of Linn appearing in London, but he seems to have gone from strength to strength in the North. In particular, contemporary writers suggested that he appealed to a working class audience, as this quote from his obituary in the Glasgow Evening Times makes clear:

…anyone who knows the lives and surroundings of our younger Clyde mechanics can testify that in spending their 3d or 6d one or two evenings in the fortnight, they might, in a moral sense, go farther and fare worse… Harry Lynn was peculiarly fitted to please an audience of this class. He could not sing, but what of that?… His voice, if somewhat reedy, was strong enough to fill the hall. His songs were written by himself … [they] portrayed the everyday types of humanity with which his audience were familiar, tinkered with a strong colouring of Stockwell Street and Trongate humour.

Quoted in Frank Bruce: Scottish Showbusiness

In his later years he tried his hand at management : he became proprietor and chairman of Halls in Greenock and Dumfries (Scotland), and recruited other artists to form a touring concert party which operated very successfully in the North of England and in Scotland. Whilst living in Greenock he seems to have written The Green Oak Tree, which remains the town’s unofficial anthem.

He died at the age of 44, on 19 June 1890, after completing a two-week engagement at Carlisle. The reported cause of his death was “pneumonia and debility”. He seems to have left his wife and family in a difficult financial situation, and Mrs Harry Linn took out several adverts in The Era in subsequent years, appealing for bar work.

His songs

Harry Linn’s songs tended to reflect the standard set of song types that were popular at the time, though he often gave them a specific Scottish flavour which would appeal both to his home audience and the many Scots living in the North and Midlands of England:

• motto songs like You never miss your water… and Help a lame dog…
• comic songs like Jock McGraw
• nationalistic songs like The Highlandman’s Toast
• bucolic songs like The birds upon the trees and Eggs for your breakfast

Some songs could of course fall into more than one category . He seems to have been particularly good at writing bucolic songs, praising the joys of living in the countryside. The popularity of these songs might reflect the fact that many of his audience would be only a generation or so away from living in the country.

Unlike some of the other writers featured on this site, it is relatively easy to find complete versions of his songs . Harry Linn’s Fire Side Song Book can be purchased as a modern reprint from the British Library Historical collection, originally published in 1887. It has the subtitle “8 pages containing 50 of his most popular songs“and whilst some of the songs explicitly state that the words and music are by Harry Linn, others do not. I suspect this is coincidence, perhaps reflecting that songs that were typeset at different times. For most of the songs there is independent evidence that they were written by Harry Linn and on balance it’s my judgement that they all were (though he may have borrowed the chorus of at least one of the songs from elsewhere). I can find no evidence so far that contradicts this.

[Update 5/01/2023: Since writing this I have found evidence that Linn claimed to have written all songs in the Fire Side book. In 1888 he successfully took legal action against John Sanderson, publisher of the Poets Box Edinburgh, for publishing the song Oh Bonnie Scotland. Linn argued that it was one of the songs he had registered in the Hall of the Stationers Company in his book of 50 songs: Harry Linn’s Fire Side Song book. Sanderson’s representatives denied that Linn was the author and that “the defender had sold the songs for years and not been interfered with until now.” Linn, who in this case appeared in court personally, was able to convince the Court that he was in the right and he was awarded one guinea and expenses. Sanderson agreed to cease publishing the song in future.]

His songwriting seems to have had a particular impact on traditional singers. I have compiled a reasonably complete list of his songs as we know them (see download below). The following songs of his seem to have passed into the tradition:

1. Auld pair of Tawse, The (23431)
2. Birds upon the trees, The (1863)
3. Bonnie Jeanie Deans (6129)
4. Cumarachandhu (13562)
5. Eggs for your breakfast in the morning (1752)
6. Gee Woah (32915)
7. Get a little table (aka The Lincolnshire/Lancashire Wedding Song) (1155)
8. The green oak tree
9. Help a lame-dog over a stile (24783)
10. Help one another boys; never push a man when he’s going downhill (21544)
11. The Highlandman’s Toast (30162)
12. Jim the Carter lad (1080)
13. Jock M’Graw, The Fattest Man in the Forty Twa (1877)
14. Nora Magee (4718)
15. Wake up Johnny! (13646)
16. When the cock begins to crow (12895)
17. You never miss your water till the well runs dry (5457)

I have also included the details of a song which doesn’t appear to have been taken up by traditional singers As you paddle your boat along, which is often confused with one of Harry Clifton songs. I’ve included my notes on that song because I was trying to clarify whether there were two independent songs.

The Download contains all the Harry Linn songs we know about: based on those in Harry Linn’s Fire Side Song Book (HLFSSB), adverts taken out in contemporary newspapers like The Era and printed broadsides referenced in the Vaughan Williams Memorial library – many of which were printed by the Poets Box, a shop based in Glasgow. He doesn’t seem to have published songs under his real name.

Songs for further investigation: Join the pauper band. Pull slow and steady. They are all getting married but me (7160)

Sources

• Sheet Music: National Library of Australia
• Gale Primary Sources: British Library Newspapers
• Harry Linn’s Fire Side Song Book (1887)
• Frank Bruce: Scottish Showbusiness.
• Copyright case: A Musichall Singer and His Copyright. | Edinburgh Evening News | Wednesday 10 October 1888; ‘Action as to the Copyright of Songs’ | The Scotsman | Thursday 25 October 1888; ‘Harry Linn’s Songs’ | North British Daily Mail | Friday 26 October 1888.

For a fuller list see my Sources page

Last Updated on May 14, 2023 by John Baxter | Published: November 4, 2020