Tommy make room for your uncle

First published 1876
Lyrics TS Lonsdale Music TS Lonsdale Roud 23764

Music Hall performers Marie Lloyd 1880s on
WB Fair 1870s
Tony Pastor 1870s
Folk performances “Source” singers:
Leonard Jackson, 1890, Staffs, England
Agnes Nicol c1900, Montrose, Scotland
Miss K Diegen, c1900 Berks, England
Walter Pardon, 1979, Norfolk, England		 

Fred Jones, hatter of Leicester Square
Presents himself to you
And you may guess, when he is dressed
Of girls he knows a few
A Widow fell in love with him
While riding in a train
She had a blessed boy with her
Who caused us both much pain

Tommy, make room for your Uncle
There's a little dear
Tommy, make room for your Uncle
I want him to sit here
You know Mamma has got a bun
And that she'll give to you
So don't annoy, there's a good boy
Make room for your Uncle do

When first I met the firm of Green
‘Twas on my journey down
To spend a day at Rosherville
‘Just like a swell from town.'
The Widow loved romantic scenes
And a squeeze on the sly
But when my arm went round her waist
The boy began to cry.

The mother told her loving son
To watch the passing train
But “No” he said “My Uncle Fred
Will kiss your hand again
The Widow blushed, a maiden blush
And I was not myself
For who could make love on a seat
In front of that young elf.

In a snug retreat in Rosherville
I went down on my knees
And asked if she would fly with me
Across the bright blue seas
She sighed and said, “You wicked man
But how about the child?”
And clasped him firmly to her breast
While I the agony piled.

Found in broadsides and song books on both sides of the Atlantic, and popular with traditional singers, going right back to the years when it was sung in the Halls.

Steve Roud in his book on English folksong, gives Flora Thompson’s description of entertainment in a Northamptonshire country pub of the 1880s, which included singing traditional ballads and “the latest music Hall successes” including Two Lovely Black Eyes, Over the Garden Wall and Tommy Make Room for Your Uncle. Indeed this is probably a very good example of exactly the sort of songs that the turn-of-the-century folksong collectors ignored when they scoured the countryside for songs. It’s unclear whether they would go as far as contemporary journalist Charles McKay who described this song as

hydraulic pumped-up fun which is not funny, [ and one of the] vulgarities that seem to fascinate the sons and daughters of the lower-middle-class

quoted in Roud Folksong

The song is most often remembered from the singing of Marie Lloyd. It was sung in America by Tony Pastor, and first popularised in England by WB Fair, described somewhat dismissively by Harold Scott, the historian of early Music Hall:

[WB Fair] is to be remembered for his creation of Tommy Make Room for Your Uncle … His work is not otherwise significant. He was a vigorous and competent comic vocalist, popular as a chairman. His connection with the last years of the Winchester led to a financial collapse, and when he died he had been for some years the doorkeeper of the London Coliseum.

Harold Scott: Early Doors

Sources: