Boys of the Chelsea School

AKA
First Published 1902
Writer/composer FW Carter and RP Weston Roud RN29701

Music Hall Performers George Leyton
Folk performances Collected from the singing of:
Bentall, Brenda ; England ; 1970		 

From Music Hall Memories number 14

Dad is now old and having earned his pension
Needed no more his soldier blood run cool
Pleasures he finds his attention
Watching the youngsters in the Chelsea School
Only youngsters learning their vocation
Learning the calling that their fathers chose
Only youngsters tended by the nation
To fight someday Britainnia's foes
Dad loves these boys and why?
'Tis thus he will reply:

"Boys of the Chelsea School
Are the sons of the men we admire
In ev'ry heart in ev'ry vein
Runs the blood of a soldier sire
Children they are, maybe
But wait till a few years fly, 
Then as heroes brave, I know they'll behave
As tier fathers did in days gone by."

Oft around his knee they'd gather for a story
Tales of the charge at the Balaclava's height
Once more he lives the ride of Death or Glory,
Ah! 'Twas an error but a glorious fight!
Faces flush while eagerly they listen;
Fingers are twitching though their lips are dumb;
But the fire that in their eyes will glisten
Tells him someday perhaps their chance may come.
Then they will do once more
As he did in Fifty four.

He loves on Sunday morning to go 
To church, and hear them sing 
Some stirring hymn with a martial theme 
A tune with the warlike swing. 
He loves to watch their faces as 
The preacher to them describes 
Some righteous war in days of yore 
Fought by the ancient tribes
 
Those boys in fancy he can see 
In days to come at duty's call. 
Ready to fight for Britannia's right 
Ready to conquer or to fall 
Marching shoulder to shoulder 
On many a shot-swept plain, 
And the muscle and the nerve of bygone days 
Will be found in those boys again

[Ends with cornet or bugle call]

To me, a rather unpleasant martial song celebrating the British Empire. It was first performed by Charles Deane at the Greenwich Palace Theatre of Varieties in 1901, but later became more associated with the singing of George Leyton. It was recalled by at least one traditional singer in the 1970s.

Leyton, who in the 1900s toured Music Halls raising money for veterans, performed the song as an elaborate scena, a theatrical term referring to a performance of a scene from an opera usually acted and sung in costume. Leyton would sometimes recruit local schoolboys to supplement his normal company of performers (on at least one occasion this involved boys from the Chelsea School itself.)

Its thought to be the prolific songwriter RP Weston‘s first published song.

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