Old Brass Locket

AKA
First Published 1894
Writer/composer Roud RN12888

Music Hall Performers Florrie Gallimore
Folk performances Source Singers
Spackman, Albert 1900-16 England Wiltshire		 

Wandering by the margin of the sailors graves
Gazing on the powerful and heartless waves;
Thinking of those souls at sea;
How they all might envy me;
As I paused and pondered on those storm tossed ships,
With a prayer for mercy on my trembling lips;
Presently a billow cast upon the shore,
An old brass locket from one who is no more.

An old brass locket cast up by the wave,
An old brass locket from a sailor's grave;
Inside there's a portrait, stained by ocean's foam,
Of a sweetheart who is waiting in a distant home.

Twined round that portrait is a golden tress,
Treasured in sweet memory of happiness;
Truth and beauty here we trace,
In the maiden's fair young face;
Maybe she is waiting for him, day by day,
Little may she dream his soul has passed away;
I will keep that locket, brazen stained and old,
As a precious emblem of love, unsoiled by gold.

Weather worn and battered though this keepsake be,
Yet it tells the story of its own to me.
Tells me how we oft may find, 
Poverty and love combined, 
Shall I ever see the face reflected here
This poor sailor's sweetheart who he loved so dear?
She would prize the locket for the old love's sake, 
And bless me for it although her heart should break!

Collected by Alfred Williams from the singing of Albert Spackman, and published in one of his newspaper articles in 1916. Williams wrote in a note:

‘I cannot vouch for the age of the piece, though I am told it is an old folk song. It came from the neighbourhood of Didcot, Berkshire; at least that is where my informant learned the song some fifteen years ago.

Alfred Williams, MS Collection

The song was probably less than 20 years old at the time it was collected and William’s informant, if he remembered correctly, learnt the song at a time that when it was still being performed in the Halls. The Old Brass Locket was written by Harry Dacre and performed by Florrie Gallimore, who sang it throughout the 1890s. There is evidence of it being sung in amateur smoking concert’s as early as 1898, so there is every possibility that it was learnt from another amateur singer rather than directly from the Halls.

Florrie Gallimore (1867 – 1944) was a star of the 1890s, famous for her performances of sentimental songs like Its the poor wot helps the poor. MacQueen Pope described a typical performance, and perhaps in the process revealed something about the more “respectable” nature of the audience in the 1890s:

Dressed in shabby working clothes, with a black straw hat on her head, she would sing – [Its the poor wot helps the poor]. A moist eyed audience would nod its head, comfortable in its nice seats in the warm, cosy music Hall, feeling good as regards the drinks of which it had partaken, and would join heartily in the chorus. Matrons in mantles bedecked with jet and with bonnet slightly askew (on account of emotion,) would wipe their eyes and murmured to each other and to anyone else within hearing “Ah that’s true my dear I know”. Then burst into song with the rest.

Macqueen Pope: Melody Lingers, p342

Sources:

  • Entries in the Roud Indexes at the Vaughn Williams Memorial Library: https://archives.vwml.org/search/all:single[folksong-broadside-books]/0_50/all/score_desc/extended-roudNo_tr%3A12888
  • Kilgarrif Sing Us
  • Lyrics: from sheet music
  • Albert Spackman’s version: Wiltshire Community History
  • Sheet Music: Trove
  • WorldCat
  • Macqueen Pope: Melody Lingers