NEWCASTLE'S MUSICAL HERITAGE AN INTRODUCTION By ...

the soprano parts and reflected a social acceptance of women into choral clubs
and singing groups of the day, which had been exclusively male dominated.
There is no record that I can trace of any glee club in Newcastle in the 1700s, but
I think we can accept that there must have been a Glee Club as they continued
meeting through the 19 th and 20 th centuries and so far as I know may still be
harmonising their way through the 21 st .
Further down the artistic and social scale, but at the very core of Newcastle’s
musical heritage, are the Tyneside songs that are as much alive today as they
were centuries ago. The North East or Northumbria was unique in that it had a
corpus of folksongs, pipe tunes and sword dances that were not found elsewhere
in Britain. There were distinct racial factors that set Northumberland apart from
the rest of the country and gave it a unique identity in its music of the people in
its various forms No less an authority than Dr W.G. Whittaker (1876-1944)
strongly affirmed the singularity of Northumbria as being neither English nor
Scottish but both and neither. The early songs reflected the hardships and
deprivations of working class life and one of the earliest, ‘Come you not from
Newcastle’, can be traced back to the time of Queen Elizabeth I. Other
contemporary dialect songs reflected aspects of the poorer people’s lives. ‘The
Keel Row’ was popular as long ago as 1760. Later songs celebrated popular
sports such as horse racing, prize fighting and rowing and a song called, ‘The
Toon Improvement Bill’ lamented the loss of playing space which resulted from
the building of the Central Station. Newcastle being a port gave rise to songs
about the Press Gangs, which officially ceased in 1815 but were still active in
Newcastle as late as 1839. Captain John Bover, who seems to have been feared
in this respect has a memorial tablet in the Cathedral. A local verse, in answer to
the question, ‘Where es ti been, maw canny hinny addressed to a sailor,
included the lines ‘Aw’ve been ti the norrard, Cruising back and forrard, But
daurna come ashore – For Bover and his gang’. On a sadder note a song of
around 1842 reflects the feelings of those who saw their friends sentenced to
fifteen years penal servitude by a judge on the Northern Circuit for stealing;-
‘Oh! ‘tis a cruel sentence for a man to leave his wife,
His children, and his dearest friends, all dearer than his life;
To leave the land that gave him birth, to see it p’haps no more,
And drag a wretched life in chains, upon a distant shore.
The rich have no temptations, they have all things at command
And ‘tis for pleasure and for health, they leave their native land;
But a starving wife and family, makes a poor man’s heart to break,
And makes him do what brings a blush of shame upon his cheek.’
The audience for these songs would not have been receptive to high art, which
was shown when Paganini (1782-1840) the virtuoso violinist, made a tour of the
North East and the following was written;-
“Hats off, smash your brains, here comes greet Baggy Nanny”
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