Music Hall saw the beginning of the profession of songwriter and came along around the same time as the first attempts to copyright or otherwise protect written music and lyrics. The 19th century saw the publication of tens of thousands of sheet music songs based on the popular songs of the day. A number of very prolific songwriters feature in these, including JB Goeghegan: Joseph Bryan (Jack) Geoghegan.
The interesting thing about this person is that many of his songs appear to have entered the folk tradition, including:
- 10,000 miles away
- Glossop Road
- Johnny we hardly knew ye
- John Barleycorn (Roud 2141 not the other one)
- Down in a coal mine
- Pat works on the railway
Until recently not a great deal was known about this man. But recent research by his descendants and various folkies have revealed more of the story.
He was he was born in Barton-upon-Irwell (part of Salford) in 1816, son of a fustian cutter from Dublin, his mother was from Manchester. Allegedly “before he reached manhood [he] took to writing songs upon current events”. He left home at an early age and was married to Elizabeth (a ‘vocalist’) before he was 19.
Geoghegan later became the chairman of ceremonies at the Bolton Museum and Star Music Hall in the 1860s and 1870s. He left the Star for a while to run Pullan’s Theatre of Varieties, a wooden construction on Bolton’s wholesale market, but later returned to the Star and Museum as manager.
[The temperance movement in Bolton saw the Star as “the means of sending more souls to hell than the Sunday schools of Bolton are the means of preventing from going thither”]
GJ Mellor tells us gives us a description from the Bolton Guardian:
The Star Music Hall had a plain stage, and to the left stood the Chairman’s box. Mr Geoghegan, the manager, acted as Chairman, and he had a mallet and called out the names of the performers.
Performances began at 7:30 each night, and the curtain was wound up by hand. A well-known character called “Museum Jack” lit the lamps and footlights with a taper, and also played the piano. If a turn failed to please, Mr Geoghegan said “You’re no good!” and ejected the hapless performer.
Geoghegan also appears at other times as the Chairman of the Old Gaiety in New Street, Hanley, Stoke. There is some indication that he may have spent some time in Sheffield as the Chairman at the Surrey Music Hall (I am unable to confirm this).
Our friend JW ‘Over’ Rowley, the Leeds comedian wrote a letter to the editor of the music Hall newspaper The Era Magazine, on Saturday August 21, 1897:
OLD SONGS
Sir – I was very much pleased and interested by the remarks of a correspondent in your last week’s issue under the above heading. It affords a singer much gratification to read, after half a century has gone by, that his songs are still alive and of the class that are likely to live forever.
But your correspondent need not go to the British Museum for information about any of the songs he cites. If he refers to a file of The Era from 1871 to 1874, he will find that ‘Down in a coal mine’ and ‘Out in the green fields’ are both my songs, the former being written and composed for me by Joseph Bryan Geoghegan, author of ‘Men of merry England’, ‘John Barleycorn’, ‘Lancashire Witches’ etc. It was published by H.D’Alcorn, each title page bearing my picture.
I sang the song for many months at every music hall in London, at Drury Lane Theatre, the Princess’s, and at Evans’s for four years. Mr.Tony Pastor made the song popular in America, and personally thanked me for permission to use it when we met at Mr.G.W.Moore’s garden party when Tony paid his first visit to England – about 1884.
Yours faithfully,
J.W. Rowley
It’s interesting that Rowley sees the songs as belonging to him rather than the person who wrote them for him. This seems to reflect the practice of Music Hall Performers fiercely protecting their rights to perform certain songs on certain stages -Rowley clearly saw himself as owning the songs in Britain but not in America.
Did Geoghegan really write all the songs? According to Stan Hugill, the doyen of shanty experts, the song 10,000 Miles Away, published under Geoghegan’s authorship in 1870, appeared to have been sung by street singers in Ireland in the early part of the 19th century under the name Botany Bay and only later became a favourite song in the Music Halls of the 50s and 60s.
Could it be that Geoghegan was claiming authorship of songs he didn’t write? It’s certainly a possibility, as sheet music for many of the songs he and others wrote can be found in slightly different forms with other individuals claiming authorship.
Claiming authorship of folk material is certainly a common feature in 20th century traditional music… AP Carter famously claimed to have written virtually every traditional song that the Carter family ever sang :-).
JB Geoghegan will feature on these pages again..
Sources
Mudcat thread on Joseph Bryan Geoghegan
Geoghegan genealogical research:
Yorkshire Garland group research on Glossop Road song
Obituary in The Era
Harold Scott Early Doors
Robert Poole Music Hall in Bolton
GJ Mellor The Northern Music Hall
Last Updated on May 31, 2020 by John Baxter | Published: January 26, 2020
