| AKA | |
| first published | 1872 |
| Lyrics | JB Geoghegan | Music | JB Geoghegan | Roud | RN3502 |
| Music Hall performers | JW Rowley 1870s |
| Folk performances | Source singers Hooper, Louie & Lucy White 1903, England : Somerset Milner, H.C.; 1909, USA : Iowa Byers, George J.; 1917, Canada : Nova Scotia Beck, Oren 1931 USA : Iowa Davis, J.Y. 1940 USA : Tennessee Galusha, John 1941 USA : New York Jones, Morgan 1946 USA : Pennsylvania Hubbard, Mrs. Salley A. 1947 USA : Utah Bailey, George / James Hedley 1951 England : Yorkshire / Wales : Glamorgan Maynard, George (‘Pop’) 1960 England : Sussex Modern performances Ian Campbell Group 1960s A fair few others! |
[From original Sheet Music]
DOWN IN A COAL MINE
Song every evening with immense applause by Mr Rowley.
Written and composed by JB Geoghegan
I am a jovial collier lad, and blithe as blithe can be,
For let the times be good or bad, they’re all the same to me;
‘Tis little of the world I know, and care less for its ways,
For where the Dog Star never glows, I wear away my days.
Down in a coal mine, underneath the ground,
Where a gleam of sunshine never can be found,
Digging dusky diamonds all season round,
Down in a coal mine, underneath the ground.
My hands are horny, hard and black, with working in the vein,
And like the clothes upon my back my speech is rough and plain;
Well, if I stumble with my tongue, I've one excuse to say
'Tis not the collier’s heart that’s wrong, 'tis th'head that goes astray.
At every shift be't soon or late I haste my bread to earn,
And anxiously my kindred wait and watch for my return;
For Death, that levels all alike, whate’er their rank may be,
Amid the fire and damp may strike and fling his darts at me.
How little do the great ones care, who sit at home secure,
What hidden dangers colliers dare, what hardships they endure;
The very fires their mansions boast to cheer themselves and wives,
Mayhap were kindled at the cost of jovial collier’s lives.
Then cheer up lads, and make ye much of every joy ye can,
But let your mirth be always such as best becomes a man,
However Fortune turns about we’ll still be jovial souls,
For what would England be without the lads that look for coals
Another song by the prolific JB Geoghegan and sung by our friend from Leeds JW “Over” Rowley.
The earliest mention of the song in The Era was in 1871: Mr JW Rowley a recent arrival from the provinces, made his bow to an audience at the East of London and achieved great success. He has a nimble pair of feet, and treated the spectators to some step dancing of the right sort, which was given with ease grace and artistic finish. He will assuredly take first rang amongst them Music Hall singers. His characteristic songs “Down in a Coal Mine” and “The Donkey Driver” went immensely. (Jan 1, 1871).
Rowley gifted the rights to sing the song in the USA to the early vaudeville impresario, Tony Pastor, who evidently sang it to great success. Along with Sarah’s Young Man it was a song Pastor loved to sing right up to the end of his career in 1908.
It appears 57 times in the Roud Folk Song Index (Ed128), mostly reprinted in American song collections, though it does appear in a Glasgow broadside of 1871. It’s been collected from 12 different traditional singers mostly in the US – including from the singing of “Yankee John Galusha” by Anne and Frank Warner in the 1940s and from George “Pop” Maynard in Sussex by Mervyn Plunkett in 1957. Cecil Sharp himself collected a version from the singing of Louis Hooper and Lucy White in Hambridge, Somerset in 1903.
The Ian Campbell group sing:
Sources:
- Sheet music for US version (1872) Library of Congress and (1872) Levy
- UK Sheet music: Geoghegan, J. B., Rowley, J. W., & Childs, R. (1873). Down in a coal mine. H. D’Alcorn. [Bodleian Library Mediated Copying]
- Background and modified words: Yorkshire Garland Group (contains dead links)
- Records in VWML
- Ballad Index
Last Updated on April 5, 2025 by John Baxter | Published: February 4, 2020
