Rose of Allendale: A Song History
"The Rose of Allendale" is often taken for an Irish or Scottish folk song, but it began as an English parlour song, with words by the London music publisher Charles Jefferys (1807-1865) and music by Sidney Nelson (1800-1862).[1] The sources consulted here do not agree on when it was written, offering dates from about 1830 into the 1840s.[1][2] It was in print in America by 1840, when H. Prentiss of Boston and Firth & Hall of New York both issued it as sheet music under the spelling "Allandale," crediting the words to Charles Jeffery and the music to S. Nelson.[3][4] Whitelaw's Book of Scottish Song took it in by 1843, and singers have since placed the Allendale of the title in Northumberland or in Scotland without settling the question.[1][2]
John Martin, The Valley of the Tyne, My Native Country near Henshaw, watercolor, gouache and gum arabic, 1842. The Tyne valley in Northumberland, where some singers place the Allendale of the title; it has no connection to the song.
The song travelled well beyond the drawing room: Gale Huntington found copies in the journals of three whaling ships dated 1847, 1849 and 1852 and printed it in Songs the Whalemen Sang (1964).[1][2] In Sussex it was kept in the Copper Family's repertoire as a favourite of Bob Copper's great-uncle Tom, and the family's version, recorded on the 1971 Leader set A Song for Every Season, became the basis for the arrangements of later revival singers.[1] Nic Jones, Jean Redpath and Fred Jordan were among the singers who recorded it later, and Jon Boden with the Remnant Kings included it on the 2024 album Parlour Ballads.[1] It also lived on in the west of Ireland, where Martin Howley sang it at his home in Fanore, County Clare, for a recording made in the summer of 1975 and now held in the Carroll Mackenzie Collection.[5]
Janene Millen and Shawn McCurdy arrange it in DAD tuning for From Ditties To Dirges, a mountain dulcimer songbook of ballads, laments and courting songs with old melodies, mostly from the British Isles, that comes with demonstration recordings, song sheets for singers and historical notes.[6]
Sources
- Mainly Norfolk: "The Rose of Allendale".
- The Traditional Ballad Index: "Rose of Allandale, The".
- Connecticut College, Greer Music Library, Historic Sheet Music Collection: "Rose Of Allandale".
- Valdosta State University Archives: "The Rose of Allandale".
- Clare County Library, Carroll Mackenzie Collection: "The Rose of Allendale" (Martin Howley).
- Janene Millen and Shawn McCurdy: "From Ditties To Dirges".
- Image: John Martin, The Valley of the Tyne, My Native Country near Henshaw, watercolor, gouache and gum arabic, 1842. The Cleveland Museum of Art.