Great big wheel, The

The Great Big Wheel  
(Cyril Poacher recorded by Ginette Dunn at Blaxhall Ship, 5.9.75, with a small addition from Geoff Ling's version)  

Mary Ann the servant maid was let out now and then
She was given strict injunction to return again at ten.
She had a soldier sweetheart and to him did appeal,
To take her down to Earl's Court for a ride on the wheel.

Oh, poor Mary Ann, when she got to the top,
Her heart went flippety flop,
And the wheel began to stop.
The Man in the Moon come out to laugh
And Mary Ann did squeal.
She lost her situation through the great big wheel.
Though she tried with might and main
She couldn't move the wheel.

Mary got so hungry, the cold began to feel.
Around her soldier's neck she clung,
Been on the wheel all night.
"Pack up your tricks you saucy mix (minx)
And clear out of me sight."

Now when this wheel it reached the top
And quickly to the ground,
Mary to her situation quickly toddled round.
Around her soldier's neck she clung,
"Oh dear, oh dearie me!
I promised to be home at ten
And now it's half-past three."

John Howson collected this song from traditional singer Geoff Ling, while Ginette Dunn collected it from Cyril Poacher, both at The Ship Inn, Blaxhall in Suffolk. Both collectors suggested it was likely to be a song written by E.W. Rogers and sung by Arthur Leonard: The Great Big Wheel (published 1895). Unfortunately, this is unlikely to be correct. A Google image search for “the great big wheel Lennard” reveals several instances of an apparently copyrighted image of the sheet music cover, which includes a very different chorus:

Rolling round the wheel, rolling round the wheel,
Rolling men and boys and girls,
And rolling babies, Dukes and earls,
And oh my! It makes the ladies squeal,
The roly-poly feeling on the Great Big Wheel

Sadly, I have not been able to find the source of the song about Mary Ann and the wheel. It’s likely to be from the late 1890s, when a series of songs were written in response to the excitement generated by a spate of Ferris wheels being built after the first was launched in 1893 in Chicago. The Great Wheel at Earls Court was opened in 1895, closed in 1906 and famously got stuck in May 1896, stranding passengers for 4 1/2 hours. There is a distinct possibility that the song was written in response to that event…

The song was not only remembered by folk-singers – the chorus has been used several times in fiction to give a flavour of the music halls (the chorus is almost identical in each case):

• An unfilmed screenplay and untitled poem both written in the early 1950s by Malcolm Lowry
• A novel published in 1979: The felling of Thawle by Geraldine Halls
• The novel Sinners Never Die: A Savage Small-Town Saga, by A. E. Martin (1992)

You can hear a recording of Cyril poacher singing it at the Vaughan Williams Memorial library site