Repatriated to the UK: the first ‘People’s Song Book’

Reunited!

Book 1 of The People’s Song Book (1905) finally reached me, yesterday. Repatriated back to the UK from Virginia, it was beautifully packaged and looks, outwardly, in good condition for its age. Inside is the most fragile paper I have ever encountered. And I’m not kidding! I have done some repairs with library-standard transparent Filmoplast, but the pages tear if one so much as lifts them too quickly to turn over, so I doubt I’ll be using it on the piano much.

Repurposed

Nonetheless, I have pretty much answered my own question: John Leng & Co’s The People’s Friend Students’ Song Book of 1939 derived half of its songs from Book 1 of their earlier The People’s Song Book, and half from Book 2 (1915). Both books, with Tonic Sol-Fa above the staff notation, were compiled by Nimmo Christie (1855-1920), a Dundee music teacher and music critic. For many years he wrote for the Dundee Advertiser, the first Dundee newspaper that John Leng edited. Christie’s sister was a journalist on the same paper.

Christie actually compiled several song books of this type. His name doesn’t appear inside either of The People’s Song Book volumes, but there’s sufficient evidence in contemporary Dundee newspapers. I’m completely convinced. Since he also conducted the Leng Medal concerts – and other school concerts – for a few years, there’s a pleasing tangential overlap with my Leng Scottish Song research, too.

Now, if the later People’s Friend Students’ Song Book derives from the two earlier collections, is there any more to say? Well, yes.

‘A-Roving’

There is one extra song which is in neither earlier book. Back and forth I went, looking through the section indices and the music itself. But ‘A-Roving’ (also known as ‘At Number Three Old England Square’) is categorically not there. An early appearance of this song was in the Canadian Camp Fire Choruses of 1887, ‘Presented to Members of the Canadian Expeditionary Forces With the Compliments of The Compilation Committee of the University of Toronto Song Book’. Oxford University Press reprinted it in 1916.

The song is also in Bayley & Ferguson’s Scottish Students Song Book – but although it’s the same tune, the piano arrangement is different, so it wasn’t just lifted.

Which begs the question, why did John Leng & Co. insert the song into their later publication? I suspect it may simply have been the choice of a well-known song that would fill a blank page.  I cannot find any reason why this particular song was included, and certainly no link to the by-now long-deceased Nimmo Christie.

No matter.  Community singing and family sing-songs were for many years a popular form of amusement for folk in many walks of life. Evidently, students were no different. It says something for the repertoire that it was still considered worth reproduction in this free supplement in The People’s Friend, a quarter of a century later.

Related Post

You may also like to read my blog post of 8 March, The People’s Song Book No.2