John Malone

Frank Kidson Broadside Collection Vol. 5 p. 27 VWML

MR. JOHN MALONE

On the 15th of September, I dressed up nate and gay,
For to join a grand procession, I at once set on my way,
There was tinkers, tailors, scavengers, and ladies short and tall,
All went to see the opening of our lovely New Town Hall ;
There was Mr. Michael Murphy, wid a bran new suit o' clothes,
That was made by Johnny Docherty, who everybody knows,
Muldoon, the solid-man was there, as dacent as could be,
But there wasn t'one in all the lot, could stan' aside o' me.

Spoken — I was there, and there wasn't one for months after, that you'd hear talking of the sights they'd seen, but you'd be sure to hear them exclaim —

Did you see John Malone, wid his shining bran new hat?
Did you see him marching off, like a gay young aristocrat?
There was flags & banners wavin' high, and dress in style was shown.
But the greatest swell in all the lot, was Mr. John Malone.

The Mayor upon the Town Hall steps, quite stately took his stand,
He noticed none 'till I came by, and then he waved his hand,
He saw at once the style was there, for he stared wid both his eyes
As if he thought I was some Lord or Duke dressed in disguise ;
We marched all through the city, 'till I thought we'd never stop
So I fell out and fell into Magee's to take a drop,
The people there were talking of the sights they saw that day,
And I felt a little flatter'd, when I heard the women say,

I received an invitation to attend the Fancy Ball,
But widhout an evenin' suit o' clothes I could not go at all,
Mr. Docherty the tailor, my measure could not take,
Because for Mr. Murphy, he had got a suit to make;
I went to Shudehill Market, bought a new suit second hand,
And wid a flower stuck in my coat, I looked a trifle grand,
We danced 'till after midnight, when we went home in the dark,
You could scarcely walk a yard but what you'd hear some one remark—

A song perhaps both laughing at and with the Irish population of Manchester England. It was printed on cheap broadsides in England and later made it into Irish and American songsters.

Manchester’s Town Hall , described as the finest 19th century Gothic Town hall in the world, was opened in September 1877. On 15th of that month the opening was celebrated by a 50,000 strong “Procession of the Trades” with a myriad of flags and banners representing the professions of the city. 69 trades unions marched behind their banners, led by a mounted knight in full armour!

John Malone draws humour by suggesting that despite the magnificence of the procession people could only recall “John Malone with his shining brand new hat”.

John Malone seems to have been a very popular song in the 1880s, with multiple reports of it being sung by amateur performers in the North and North West of England – though later it was also sung in Scotland and Ireland (See Appendix below). I can find very little evidence (as yet) that it was widely sung on the Music Hall stage, though a 20th century correspondent remembered it being sung in unlicenced tavern “singing rooms” – at “Free-and-Easies”. This is confirmed by this contemporary notice in the Rochdale Observer for a performance at the [unlicenced] Flying Horse Concert Room, stating that Mr Tom Kenny will sing his Great Song Mr John Malone. This sort of language was commonly used in such notices to imply that Tom Kenny felt that he had the performance rights for the song, either because he had written the song himself or because he had purchased the rights from the songwriter:

Sadly I can find no further evidence linking a performer called Tom Kenny to the song.

Newspapers reports from the 1880s suggest that the song often featured in the repertoire of Mr J. Stansfield, the popular character singer of the Manchester Orpheus Glee Union. Stansfield appeared regularly at respectable entertainments such as Band of Hope concerts, Cricket Club dinners and temperance meetings. It is possible that this is the same Mr J Stansfield who was proprietor the Oddfellows Hall Halifax and Thorntons /Varieties Leeds in the 1870s and 80s.

Rudyard Kipling used the chorus to introduce one of his short stories The Solid Muldoon, first published in 1888. A writer in The Kipling Journal (January 1930) suggested that the lines were taken from a poem written by Victorian poet Robert Buchanan. This is almost certainly incorrect as the poem does not appear in either of the editions of Buchanan’s complete poetical works, it seems far more likely that Kipling heard someone singing what had become a very popular late Victorian song …. unless you know different!

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%3A34097

• Kilgarrif Sing Us
• Lyrics: Frank Kidson Broadside Collection Vol. 5 p. 27 VWML
• US Songster: Henry De Marsan’s New Comic and Sentimental Singer’s Journal, Number 112 (c1881), archive.org
• US Songster: Wehman’s Collection of Songs No 6 (c1885), Archive.org