When I started to look at the overlap between Music Hall and folksong, perhaps because my experience of folk music has been largely based in the North of England, the name which kept cropping up was JB Goeghegan: Joseph Bryan (Jack) Geoghegan (1816-89).
Steve Gardham and others active on Mudcat have found around 60 songs written by Geoghegan, and based on that list I looked for ones with the strongest connections to the folk tradition. In the end I came up with the following 15 songs, which have all either been collected from source singers, or clearly entered the repertoire of artists associated with the modern folk revivals in another way:
- 10,000 miles away (1778)
- A Drop of Good Beer (1502)/ Roger Ruff (2145)
- Down in a coal mine (3502)
- Glossop Road (13158)
- John Barleycorn is a hero bold (2141)
- Johnny we hardly knew ye (3137)
- Lancashire Witches, The (V8371)
- Merry men of England (13658)
- Napoleon talks of war, boys (13260)
- Oh! Marigold aka The Flower Song(21934)
- Old Adam was Father of all (12875)
- Pat works on the railway (208)
- Rock the Cradle John (357 and 7278)
- Same old game, The (23432)
- They all have a mate but me (1140)
The contentious issue of the origins of the song Cockles and Mussels, a song which arguably Geoghegan wrote the original version of is also explored
Another song The Hallelujah Band (V10010) was investigated because of its links to Sheffield, but can’t really be argued to have entered the folk tradition… You can follow the links to see more details about each song. Several seem to have existed in forms which allow him to make them “local” to wherever he was singing. For example, Glossop Road, which has a chorus including the words “girls up Glossop Road” is a more geographically specific version of a song called The Girls Along the Road.
I know that I’m not alone in feeling that many of the songs feel very “traditional” and not like songs that come from the Halls. Indeed, there are others who wrote for the Halls, like Harry Clifton, who have many more songs appearing in the Roud folksong index: my searches show 29 for Clifton, 15 for Geoghegan.
I initially wondered if he was claiming authorship of pre-existing songs he didn’t write. In 1 or 2 cases there is evidence that he may have taken themes from well-established songs, and perhaps even borrowed a chorus. However, so far, I can find little evidence of most of them appearing much before the 1860/70s when Geoghegan was writing/publishing. I can find no evidence in the pages of the Music Hall paper The Era, challenging claims to authorship – and writers and performers seemed very quick to use those pages to challenge misuse or wrong authorship of their songs!
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.
Jack didn’t live by the standards of the day! He married Elizabeth in 1833 and went on to have nine children with her. But he also started a second family with Mary Birchall around 1850 and went on to have eleven children with her. He maintained the two the two families simultaneously, until Elizabeth died in 1871, and he very soon after married Mary.
The earliest written record of Geoghegan performing (that I can find) is in Salford in 1843, described him as an “eminent vocalist” appearing at The Polytechnic Tavern. He appeared regularly in Bolton at The Star Inn Concert Room in 1844-45 where the adverts boasted he “rendered himself a decided favourite in Bolton by the talent he has displayed in his medleys, parodies and comic songs” (Bolton Chronicle, 3 Aug 1844)
Geoghegan then seems to move to become part of the company of singers resident at The Star Hotel in Liverpool from 1847 to 1858. He may have been based in Glasgow 1859-1860, but he definitely worked in several music halls in Sheffield from 1860 to 1864, before becoming the chairman of ceremonies at the Bolton Museum and Star Music Hall in the late 1860s and 1870s.
GJ Mellor gave a description Jack’s time at the Star and Museum Hall , taken 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.
Robert Poole paraphrases the memories of Geoghegan’s niece and nephew, recalling the way the same hall was in the 1870s:
The cheaper rows of seats had ledges on the back to rest beer mugs on, while the boxes were equipped with simple cane seats with antimacasser backs. There were two bars, one for the 2d and 4d seats, and one for the 6d seats. Geoghegan’s style as a chairman was vigorous. From his box at the side of the stage he would take back the part of the audience against a bad performer shouting “You’re no good! You’ll be paid up tonight!”
However he discouraged bad language, and if a fight started he would wade in to eject the troublemakers. The stage itself was of a proscenium type, dimly lit by gas, and with only a few props. The orchestra was a good deal smaller than it had been in the 1840s, just a piano a cornet and a violin. Performances lasted from 7;30 until 10pm which left an hour before time for singing around the piano at the back of the hall, giving this extensive place the conviviality of a simple pub.”
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.
At the end of his life he owned and managed the Gaiety Hall in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent; it was taken over by his daughter Ellen after both Jack and his wife Mary died within 6 months of each other in 1889.
Geoghegan started his professional life as a performer and songwriter. He seems to have continued to write songs throughout his career. He wrote for some of the most successful Music Hall artistes of the 1860s, 70s and 80s including Harry Liston, Sam Torr, JW Rowley and George Leybourne in the UK and Tony Pastor in the States. His songs were performed in North America but I have not found any clear evidence that he ever performed there.
He died in 1889. According to The Era his funeral was “most impressive“, it attracted the great and the good from the Theatre profession in Manchester, Liverpool and Stoke.
This attachment represents as complete list as I can come up with of Geoghegan’s songs. In some cases the information is tentative. I have given possible Roud numbers where I can, in some cases these are pretty certain, in others rather tentative.
Sources
- Mudcat thread on Joseph Bryan Geoghegan
- Geoghegan genealogical research:
- Obituary in The Era
- Harold Scott Early Doors
- Robert Poole Music Hall in Bolton
- GJ Mellor The Northern Music Hall
- Dagmar Kift, The Victorian Music Hall
A Geoghegan song worth which may be worth further investigation is The Waggoner V13355. It has some similarities with traditional songs, but as yet I can find no evidence of it being sung by source singers.
Last Updated on February 6, 2024 by John Baxter | Published: March 4, 2020
