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The Press Gang / The Lady of Riches

[ Roud 601 / Song Subject MAS30 ; Master title: The Press Gang I ; Laws N6 ; G/D 1:174 ; Henry H108a ; Ballad Index LN06 ; DT DISGSAIL ; trad.]

John Holloway, Joan Black: Later English Broadside Ballads Gale Huntington, Lani Herrmann, John Moulden: Sam Henry’s Songs of the People Maud Karpeles: Cecil Sharp’s Collection of English Folk Songs Frank Purslow: The Wanton Seed Steve Roud, Eddie Upton, Malcolm Taylor: Still Growing Alan Helsdon: Vaughan Williams in Norfolk Volume 1

Peggy Seeger sang The Weaver is Handsome in 1962 on her Prestige album A Song for You and Me. She noted:

A collation of the two variants found in Gardner and Chickering, Ballads and Songs of Southern Michigan, this song bears quite a resemblance to an old broadside, “Sailor’s Misfortune and Happy Marriage”, to be found in John Ashton’s Real Sailor Songs (London 1891). The complete text is quite complicated. She loves not a weaver but a sailor, of whom her father shows his disapproval by having him pressed aboard a ship. She “cuts off her hair and dresses in men’s clothes”, disguising herself so effectively as a sailor that she it admitted aboard her true love’s ship and lies in his arms many nights and days before he recognises her. Whereupon they marry and return home, only to find her father dead, herself an heiress and themselves o couple destined to “spend their lives In sweet innocence”. Several of the verses in the Ashton story coincide closely with the Chickering song and there is only one conclusion, that a 15-stanza broadside has been reduced to a 5-stanza love lyric.

Dave and Toni Arthur sang The Press Gang in 1969 on their Topic album The Lark in the Morning. They and A.L. Lloyd noted:

Considering the dreadful conditions in the Navy during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, it is not surprising that it was necessary to recruit men forcibly, by means of the Press Gang. Whole villages were cleared in the dead of night, and as Frank Kidson said, “With such happenings in their midst, the folk song makers had no lack of thrilling and appealing material”. The circumstances made it easy for the fathers of marriageable girls to betray the unwanted suitor and have him pressed away to sea. In many of the numerous songs on this theme, the romantic element is not missed, and the girl dressed as a man, sails in search of her love. The words here are from the Journal of The Folk Song Society No. 31 and were collected by Cecil Sharp in Somerset. They comprise a shortened version of a broadside text, “The Sailor’s Misfortune and Marriage” in which the sailor’s disguised love, who claims a knowledge of Astrology, tells his fortune and in so doing exposes her own identity.

Terry Yarnell sang The Press Gang in 1970 on The Critics Group’s Argo album As We Were A-Sailing. They noted:

References to the practice of pressing men to sea occur frequently in English and Scots folksongs. There are, however, few songs in which the press gang provides the entire theme as it does in this East Anglian song.

David Jones sang Press Gang in 1976 on the Living Folk album Here’s a Health to the Man and the Maid.

John Kirkpatrick sang The Press Gang in 2009 on Brass Monkey’s sixth album, Head of Steam. He noted:

Based on one of the songs sung to Cecil Sharp by Jack Barnard on 4 April 1907 in Bridgwater, Somerset, and included in Still Growing, edited by Steve Roud, Eddie Upton, and Malcolm Taylor, and published in 2003 by The English Folk Dance & Song Society in conjunction with Folk South West. Other versions call it The Lady of Riches which might well be a better title, as it is she who calls all the shots and saves the day, even if she can’t resist being a bit of a tease!

Lyrics

John Kirkpatrick sings The Press Gang

It’s of a rich gentleman in London did dwell
And he had but one daughter, a most beautiful girl.
Three squires came a-courting but she refused all:
“I will marry a sailor that’s proper and tall.”

“Now father, dear father, now hinder me not,
I will marry my sailor, it will be my lot.
To see him in his charm with a smile on his face
To marry a sailor I’m sure is no disgrace.”

They walked and they talked both by night and by day;
They walked and they talked and fixed their wedding day.
The old man overheard it and these words said he,
“He shan’t marry my daughter; I’ll press him to sea.”

As they were a-walking towards the church door
The press gang they took him and from her him tore.
Instead of being married he was pressed away;
Instead of great joy they knew sorrow that day.

She cut off her hair and she altered her clothes,
Unto the press master she immediately goes.
“Press master, press master, do you want a man?
I am willing and ready to do all I can.”

Then she shipped on board ’twas that very same day,
Her true love she found but no word did she say.
Her true love for a mess mate amongst that ship’s crew,
Till a plan she drew up to see what she could do.

So many a night oh so close she did lie
And little did the think that his true love was nigh.
“Once I had a sweetheart, in London lived she,
But it’s her cruel father that pressed me to sea.”

She says, “I have skill with the ink and the pen,
And a scrollager’s part I can take now and then.
Pray tell me your age and I’ll paste out your lot,
To see if you will marry your true love or not.”

So he told her his age and the date of his birth;
She told him his fortune, a great deal of worth.
She told him his fortune, said, “This is your lot,
For I am your true love though you knew it not.”

She went up close to him, “Now look well on me,
Beneath this man’s clothing your sweetheart you’ll see.
For now we’ll get married before our ship’s crew,
And we won’t care for father or all he can do.”

Now when this young couple returned to the land
Her father was dead as you’ll now understand.
So she was now lady of his great estate
And he was her lord now with riches so great.