Old Brown’s daughter

AKA
Lyrics GW Hunt Music GW Hunt Roud Index RN1426

Music Hall performers Bessie Bermond 1880s-1900s?
Alfred Vance 1870s-80s
Folk performances Source singers
Walter Pardon 1974 England : Norfolk
Modern performances
Peter Bellamy
Johnny Collins 1982
John Boden 2015		 

There is an ancient party at the other end of town,
He keeps a little grocery store and the ancient's name is Brown;
He has a lovely daughter, such a treat I never saw,
Oh, I only hope someday to be the old man's son-in-law.

Chorus: 
Old Brown's daughter is a proper sort of girl,
Old Brown's daughter is as fair as any pearl;
I wish I was a Lord Mayor, Marquis, or an Earl,
And blow me if I wouldn't marry Old Brown's girl.

Old Brown sells from off the shelf most anything you please,
Treacle, soap, bundles of wool, lollipops, and cheese;
His daughter minds the store, and it's a treat to see her serve,
I'd like to run away with her, but I don't have the nerve.
 
Well Poor Old Brown now has trouble with the gout,
He grumbles in his little parlour when he can't get out;
And when I make a purchase and she hands me the change,
That girl she makes me galvanised, I feel so very strange.
 
Miss Brown she smiles so sweetly when I say a tender word,
But Old Brown says that she must wed a Marquis or a Lord;
Well, I don't suppose it's ever one of those swells I will be,
But, by jingo, next election I will put up for MP.

A song which passed from the music hall into the folk tradition. Bill Leader and Peter Bellamy collected it from the singing of Walter Pardon in 1975. It was enthusiastically adopted as a folksong in Newfoundland. In any case, it has been taken up by a number of singers in the British Isles: I first heard it in Sheffield sung by Ray Padgett.

It was written by GW Hunt – a prolific professional songwriter active 1860-90, and it seems to have been first published as sheet music in 1871:

Illustrated London News, February 25 1871

I know little of the career of Bessie (aka Beatrix?) Bermond, a short summary of her repertoire is given in the Killgarriff book, if I find out more I will add it!

Alfred Vance, a.k.a. the great Vance, started out in black face, but by the end of the 1860s was a huge star, no longer in blackface, the 1st to adopt the persona of a “swell about town”, the Lion Comique. Dressed in top hat, monocle and smart suit he would mimic the manners of the great and the good, singing his comic songs. Despite or because of this, he was a favourite of the Prince of Wales later Edward VII. An important part of his stage act was the consumption of large quantities of champagne, an activity which reputedly continued offstage. This may have contributed to his declining health in the late 1880s: he died on stage in 1888, aged 49.

Sources:

Jon Boden sings: