Dolly Varden Hat, The

AKA The Dolly Varden Hats
The Dolly Varden Line
The Dolly Varden Style
First Published c1873
Writer/composer Jolly John Nash? Roud RN23628

Music Hall Performers Jolly John Nash?
Folk performances Collected from the singing of:
Ross, John : Scotland : Ross-Shire ; 1929-35
Mulkeen, Tom Ireland : Co. Mayo ; c1937
Unknown singer ; Ireland : Co. Tipperary ; 1940
Birkett, Margaret England : Westmorland ; 1965
Forbes, Annie ; Scotland : Caithness : 1968
MacKay, John ; Scotland: Sutherland ; 1973
Pardon, Walter : England : Norfolk : 1989

Modern performances: none?

 

THE DOLLY VARDEN HAT
Poets Box 80 London Street Glasgow
Sat Dec 20, 1873

AIR: Knickerbocker line.

Come, dear, don't fear, try and cut a shine,
And wear a hat and feathers in the fashionable line,
Lovers you'll have plenty, of that you may depend,
If you wear the Dolly Varden hat, and do the Grecian Bend.                

Come, dear, don't fear, have your ringlets curled,
If you're out of fashion, you had better leave the world,
Your sweet and pretty faces will wear a winning smile,
If you get a hat and feather in the Dolly Varden style.

There's little Polly Pudding chops, don't she do the grand,
With a tiny hat upon her heed, no bigger than your hand,
And this Grecian Bender toddling on her toes,
With a hat like a cockle shell stuck upon her nose.

Our grandmother years ago were comfortable souls,
They used to wear a bonnet like scuttle for the coals,
But bonnets are so altered now by woman one and all,
They made them smaller every day till now there's none at all.

I know a jolly carpenter is name is Peter Platt
He courted a girl with a Dolly Varden Hat,
And while they were a courting he proved so very kind,
He rumpled all the muslin in her panniers behind.

Some of them are rather large, some are rather small,
Some with very wide brims and some with none at all,
I know a girl that wears one, oh ! aint she nice and fat,
You could drive a dozen donkeys round her Dolly Varden hat.

Miss Jemima Jenkins—what a precious flat,
Pawned her mother's breeches for a Dolly Varden hat,
She couldn't get a chignon, 'tis true I do declare
So she stole a lot shavings and rolled them in her hair.

Sally New, indeed it's true, is crying in distress,
She was going to a ball but she found an awful mess,
She has just been and found out a nasty tabby cat,
With five and forty kittens on her Dolly Varden hat.

If the men want to wear them the women won't complain
They'll do for umbrellas to save them from the rain,
While the soldiers are drilling on Salisbury Flats
They're dressing all the volunteers in Dolly Varden hats

In the late 1860s and early 1870s the “Dolly Varden style” was the height of fashion in English speaking countries. Consisting of a “Dolly Varden hat” and “Dolly Varden dress”, it was named after a character Charles Dickens’ historical novel Barnaby Rudge (1841) and reflected a modern revival of 1770s fashion.

Godley’s Lady’s Book mocked the sensation:

A “DOLLY VARDEN Cough Elixir” is announced, Dolly Varden horseshoe, Dolly Varden dog collar, Dolly Varden razor strops, and, running the thing in the ground, are Dolly Varden metallic coffins.

Godey’s Lady’s Book And Magazine, July 1872, p96.

In the theatres there multiple sketches, ballets, operettas and plays featuring the character. Music publishers were not slow to cash in on the craze, producing dozens of different dances The Dolly Varden Valse, The Dolly Varden Schottische, … March, … Quadrille, and many others. There were almost as many different songs with “Dolly Varden” in the title – I have listed some in the appendix below but there are certainly others …

It seems, however, that only one of these songs passed into traditional singing – The Dolly Varden Hat. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find out unequivocally who wrote the song or who performed it at the time. Research is hampered by the thousands of mentions of Dolly Varden that pepper texts written in the early 1870s. the the closest I have got is is one report that in March 1873, at Sam Collins’ Music Hall,  Jolly John Nash:

contributed his own well-written song about ” The Northfleet” and strains relating to ” A clock mender” and a girl with a Dolly Varden hat. – The Era – Sunday 02 March 1873

This is flimsy evidence, but its the best I can find, so I will provisionally credit Jolly John Nash with writing and performing the song – if you know different do let me know!

The song appears have been widely printed as a broadside, there are 14 surviving broadsides listed in the Roud Broadside Index at time of writing. As yet I have not discovered examples of this song in songsters or on sheet music.

The Dolly Varden Hat has been collected from 7 different traditional singers mostly in Ireland and Scotland – you can hear John MacKay sing it at the wonderful Kist O Riches site, there is also a fragment sung by Annie Forbes on the same site.

Sources:

  • Ballad Index
  • Kilgarrif Sing Us
  • Lyrics: Poets Box (Glasgow) broadside dated Dec 20, 1873
  • Sheet Music of other songs and dances about Dolly Varden: see Levy Collection entries.

Appendix

Some of the songs referring to the Dolly Varden craze (with Roud numbers where they have them):

  • All through a Dolly Varden (c1872, RNV4879) First line: Attend kind friends awhile.
  • Dress’d in a Dolly Varden (1870, RNV4883). Words and music by GW Moore. First Line: While promenading the other day
  • Dolly Varden, (c1872, RNV4882). Words and music by GW HUNT. Sung by Alfred Vance. First Line: For novelties all have a passion
  • Dashing Dolly Varden (1872). Words by JW Henocksburgh. Music by WO Fiske. First Line: Oh I wear the latest style the Dolly Varden.
  • Dolly Varden’s Wedding (1872) Words and music by TR Tebby.  First Line: A long time I’ve been looking out
  • Dolly Varden, (1872, RNV4881) Words by FW Green. Music by Alfred Lee. Sung by James Hillier. FL “Oh have you seen my little girl”
  • Dolly Varden Hats, The (c1873, RN23628 and previously RN13641) FL Come dear, don’t fear, try and cut a shine
  • Dolly Varden (RNV4880). Words and music by Carey. First line: Won’t you tell me, Dolly Varden