---

Broadside Ballads

Sold in the streets for a penny or halfpenny between the 16th and early 20th centuries, broadside ballads were popular songs of the day, often anonymous, and were performed in taverns, homes, or fairs. The examples below, relating to the poor-law and workhouse, are from the Bodleian Library's collection. A Bodleian shelfmark follows each title.

• Queer, boys, queer (Firth b.27(147))
• The poor law Bastile (Firth b.34(283a))
• Pauper's Drive (Firth c.16(307))
• The Workhouse Door (Firth c.16(308))
• Lines on the death of a most cruel, hard-hearted overseer of the poor (Firth c.16(309))
• A flare up amongst the Lambeth Guardians (Firth c.16(310))
• The vorkhouse boy (Firth c.16(311))
• The St. Pancras prigging overseers (Firth c.16(312))
• Workhouse girl (Firth c.16(313))
• The Tooting tragedy (Firth c.16(314))
• Eat, ye paupers, eat (Firth c.16(315))
• Pauper and the minister (Firth c.16(316))
• The women flogger's lament of Marylebone workhouse! (Firth c.16(317))
• Joe Bradley, the runaway workhous boy (Firth c.16(319))
• A night in a London workhouse (Harding B 13(154))
• A night's repose in Lambeth workhouse (Harding B 13(155))
• The new poor law bill in force (Johnson Ballads 1148)
• The new Poor law bill (Johnson Ballads 1529)

You can listen to a recording (MP3) of The Workhouse Boy (a variation on The Vorkhouse Boy above) performed by the Seven Dials Band (by kind permission of Beautiful Jo Records).

[Top of Page] [Literature and Arts Index] [Home Page]

---

---

---

---

* * *  For US readers  * * *

---

---

---