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The Sheffield Apprentice

[ Roud 399 ; Laws O39 ; Ballad Index LO39 ; trad.]

Joseph Leaning sang the broadside song The Sheffield Apprentice on a cylinder recording made by Percy Grainger in 1908. This recording was published in 1972 on the Leader album Unto Brigg Fair. The sleeve notes commented:

This song appears to have been issued more especially by printers out of London and this is unusual. Another strange thing is that very many Anglo-American versions have been collected but in comparison to other broadsides of its type, few English sets. Once again one is directed to Laws' index for the American sources but the following British variants have been noted: CTBA, GNE, OBSB, SMSI, FSJ Nos. 4, 8 and broadsides by W, CM, RN, RB, JB, WB and S.

Ewan MacColl sang The Sheffield Apprentice in 1952 on a 78rpm Topic record and in 1957 on his and Peggy Seeger's Riverside album Matching Songs of the British Isles and America.

Hedy West sang The Sheffield Apprentice in 1967 on her Topic LP Ballads. She or A.L. Lloyd commented in the liner notes:

A rich lady falls in love with a servant. But he is in love with her maid, and refuses to renounce his sweetheart. The rich lady frames him as a thief and brings him to his execution. Fielding used the plot in his novel Joseph Andrews, and ever since it has been a standby of popular literature. The nineteenth century broadside and song-book press reprinted the song over and over again, and it spread the length and breadth of the British Isles and the United States. Versions of it still turn up not uncommonly in tradition. The set sung here is a combination of two versions collected by Cecil Sharp in North Carolina some half-a-century ago. Variants of the tune have carried a score of texts including The State of Arkansas, the outlaw ballad Cole Younger, and the song of the murdered mine-workers' union organiser, Harry Simms.

Louis Killen recorded The Sheffield Apprentice in 1968 for his 1973 LP Sea Chanteys.

Joe Stead sang Sheffield Apprentice in 1986 on his Greenwich Village LP A Baker's Score.

Jon Boden sang Sheffield Apprentice “at a Vaughan Williams night at Cecil Sharp House a few years ago” in 2008:

He returned to it for the February 1, 2011 entry of his project A Folk Song a Day; this time accompanying himself on guitar.

Lyrics

Joseph Leaning sings The Sheffield Apprentice

I was brought up in Sheffield but not of high degree,
My parents dotted on me having no child but me.
(Soon as) I rode in plenty, just as my fancy went
Why I was bound apprentice and all my joys were spent.

I did not like my master, he did not use me well.
I made a resolution not long with him to dwell,
I wrote unto my parents, told them I'd run away
And steered my course to London on that unhappy day.

When I arrived in London, bold Verity met me there.
Offered to me great wages to serve her for a year,
And then by her fine speeches she had deluded me
And I went to live in Holland which proved my destiny.

I had not been in Holland, not years two or three,
Before my lovely mist-er-ess she grew so fond of me,
“My gold and my silver, my houses and my land,
If you will consent to marry with me, they're all at your command.”

I answer-ed my mist-er-ess, “I cannot wed you for
I've lat-e-ly promised marriage and I've made a solemn oath
To wed with none but Molly, the lovely chambermaid,
And so pray you excuse me madam, she has my heart betrayed.”

She flew into a passion and from me she did go.
Swore she would be revenged on me for answering her so.

Then as I walked the garden just by the dawn of day,
I spied my lovely mist-er-ess viewing her flowers gay,
A ring from off her finger, and as I pass-ed by
Then she slipped it into my pocket and for it I must die.

(She) swore that I had robbed her and hurried I was brought
Before a grave old justice then to answer for my fault;
A long time I pleaded innocent but it was all in vain,
Why she swore point blank against me, she left me in the gaol.

Soon at the last assizes, where I was brought and tried,
The judge he gave me sentence, upon me then he passed,
From thence to execution they brought me to the tree,
And so Godly was my mist-er-ess, for she has ruined me.

Come all you good people that come my fate to see,
Why don't you laugh at my downfall but come and pity me,
Come all you good people that caused my fate to seal
Oh don't laugh at my downfall but come and pity me.

Acknowledgements

Joseph Leaning's verses were copied from the liner notes of Unto Brigg Fair.