Elsie Marley
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Elsie Marley (c. 1713–1768) was an alewife who lived in Picktree, near
Chester-le-Street Chester-le-Street () is a market town in County Durham, England. It is located around north of Durham and is close to Newcastle. The town holds markets on Saturdays. In 2021, the town had a population of 23,555. The town's history is ancient; ...
,
County Durham County Durham, officially simply Durham, is a ceremonial county in North East England.UK General Acts 1997 c. 23Lieutenancies Act 1997 Schedule 1(3). From legislation.gov.uk, retrieved 6 April 2022. The county borders Northumberland and Tyne an ...
, England. This is close to Harraton Hall, the home of the Lambton family. A song and jig tune bearing her name, popular in her lifetime, are still played locally.


Life

A surprising amount is known about the life of Alice (Elsie) Marley, from birth and marriage records, from newspaper accounts of her death, and from Cuthbert Sharp's notes on the song about her life, prepared in consultation with her grandson. Her birth name, Alice Harrison, being common, a firm identification seems impossible, but she may well be the Alice Harrison christened in
Houghton-le-Spring Houghton-le-Spring ( ) is a town in the Sunderland district, in Tyne and Wear, England which has its recorded origins in Norman times. Historically in County Durham, it is now administered as part of the Tyne and Wear county. It lies betw ...
, on 24 August 1713. This is not far from Chester-le-Street, and this birth date is consistent with the date of her marriage. In 1735 she became the first wife of Ralph Marley, who kept a
public house A pub (short for public house) is in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption Licensing laws of the United Kingdom#On-licence, on the premises. The term first appeared in England in the ...
at Picktree, near Chester-le-Street, County Durham. They had eight children. She was well-known in her lifetime - in 1765 at Beverley races, one of the horses was Mr. Wormley's bay mare, 'Alcey Marley', suggesting her name was well known. According to Cuthbert Sharp, writing some 50 years after her death, the inn bore the sign of the
Swan Swans are birds of the genus ''Cygnus'' within the family Anatidae. The swans' closest relatives include the goose, geese and ducks. Swans are grouped with the closely related geese in the subfamily Anserinae where they form the tribe (biology) ...
, with the appropriate motto:- “The Swan doth love the water clear,
And so does man good ale and beer.” She was a handsome, buxom, bustling landlady, and by her efforts, made the Swan a financial success. However, on their march towards
Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...
during the
Jacobite risings Jacobitism was a political ideology advocating the restoration of the senior line of the House of Stuart to the Monarchy of the United Kingdom, British throne. When James II of England chose exile after the November 1688 Glorious Revolution, ...
in 1745, the
Dutch Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands ** Dutch people as an ethnic group () ** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship () ** Dutch language () * In specific terms, i ...
mercenary troops used the inn for target practice, and it remained "in a tattered condition" for many years after. She suffered from a long, severe illness, and on 5 August 1768, was found drowned in a flooded coal pit near Vigo, near
Birtley, Tyne and Wear Birtley is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead, in Tyne and Wear, England. It is situated to the south of Gateshead and is conjoined to Chester-le-Street across the county boundary in County Durham. Until 1974, Birtley and the a ...
. It was presumed she had accidentally fallen in, and because of her weak state, had been unable to climb out. The report in the ''
Newcastle Chronicle The ''Evening Chronicle'', now referred to in print as ''The Chronicle'', is a daily newspaper produced in Newcastle upon Tyne covering North regional news, but primarily focused on Newcastle upon Tyne and surrounding area. The ''Evening Chronic ...
'' reads "Thursday sen'night, in the morning, Alice Marley, Vigo, near Chester-le-Street, remarkable for the celebrated song composed upon her, was found drowned in a pond near that place." The account in the ''Newcastle Courant'' is more detailed: "Yesterday sen'night the well-known Alice Marley, of Picktree near Chester-le-Street, shaking in fever, got out of her house and went into a field where there was an old coal(pit) full of water, which she fell into, and was drowned." Both make clear she had been a local celebrity. Her youngest son, Harrison Marley, in turn had a son (her grandson) called Ralph, who was known to be alive c. 1825. Ralph was cited as one of Cuthbert Sharp's informants in his notes on the song "Elsie Marley".


The song and tune

Elsie Marley gave her name to a spirited and lively jig, as well as a humorous song to the same tune, about her life, indexed by
Roud The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of around 250,000 references to nearly 25,000 songs collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world. It is compiled by Steve Roud. Roud's Index is a combination of the Broadsid ...
as Roud 3065. The lyric is in the same metre as the verse on the sign of The Swan, which may well be deliberate. One verse of the song, not printed in Ritson's early version,http://www.farnearchive.com/detail.asp?id=N3404701 but noted by Sharp some years later as being current in the neighbourhood, reads: Elsie Marley wore a straw hat But now she's getten a velvet cap The Lambton lads mun pay for that Do ye ken Elsie Marley, hinny? This hints at a relationship between her and the sons of the Lambton family, two of whom served as M.P. for Durham. It might be a later addition, but may well have been omitted from the early printed text to avoid offending the Lambtons. The words in the last verse, "hoping there's none I do offend" tends to confirm the latter. It is mentioned as "the celebrated song" in the ''Newcastle Chronicles account of her death. The words were first published by
Joseph Ritson Joseph Ritson (2 October 1752 – 23 September 1803) was an English Antiquarian, antiquary known for editing the first scholarly collection of Robin Hood ballads (1795). After a visit to France in 1791, he became a staunch supporter of the idea ...
in ''The Bishopric Garland'', 1784. The song is described as “anonymous” in ''
The Bishoprick Garland ''The Bishoprick Garland'' is a book compiled by Cuthbert Sharp which gives historical details of people, places and events from the Bishopric of Durham, and was published in 1834. Details ''The Bishoprick Garland'' – (full title – "The B ...
'' of 1834 compiled by Sir Cuthbert Sharp. The song also appears in ''
Rhymes of Northern Bards ''Rhymes of Northern Bards'' (full title – "Rhymes of Northern Bards: being a curious collection of old and new Songs and Poems, Peculiar to the Counties of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle, Northumberland and County Durham, Durham – Edited b ...
'' compiled by John Bell. Both the tune and the song are still widely known in the North-East; the tune was recorded by
Tom Clough Tom Clough (1881–1964), known as "The Prince of Pipers", was an English player of the Northumbrian pipes, or Northumbrian smallpipes. He was also a pipemaker, and the pipes he made with Fred Picknell include several important innovations, an ...
on his
His Master's Voice His Master's Voice is an entertainment trademark featuring a dog named Nipper, curiously peering into the horn of a wind-up gramophone. Painted by Francis Barraud in 1898, the image has since become a global symbol used across consumer elect ...
recording of smallpipes in 1929, and the song by the
High Level Ranters The High Level Ranters are a Music of Northumbria, Northumbrian traditional musical group founded in 1964, best known for being one of the first bands in the revival of the Northumbrian smallpipes. Name and history The name was chosen as a com ...
on their 1976 album ''Ranting Lads''. The tune is also referenced in the lyrics of " Byker Hill", another traditional Northeast English folk song. An early and consistent three-strain version appears in a collection by Robert Topliff, from about 1815. A less consistent, but similar, 4-strain version appeared at about the time of Elsie's death in Robert Bremner's 'Collection of Scots Reels', compiled in Edinburgh, and a rather different 2-strain version is found in the
William Vickers manuscript From 1770 to 1772 a man called William Vickers made a manuscript collection of dance tunes, of which some 580 survive, including both pipe and fiddle tunes. The manuscript is incomplete - 31 pages have not survived, though their contents are liste ...
from Newcastle, dated 1770. The distinctive harmonic pattern of this
mixolydian mode Mixolydian mode may refer to one of three things: the name applied to one of the ancient Greek ''harmoniai'' or ''tonoi'', based on a particular octave species or scale; one of the medieval church modes; or a modern musical mode or diatonic s ...
tune is very common in Northumbrian and Border music, and specifically music for
Border pipes The border pipes are a type of bagpipe related to the Scottish Great Highland Bagpipe. It is perhaps confusable with the Scottish smallpipe, although it is a quite different and much older instrument. Although most modern Border pipes are close ...
. Some 13 of the 40 tunes in the
William Dixon manuscript The William Dixon manuscript, written down between 1733 and 1738 in Northumberland, is the oldest known manuscript of pipe music from the British Isles, and the most important source of music for the Border pipes. It is currently located in the ...
follow the same scheme, or one of its variants.The Master Piper – Nine Notes That Shook the World, William Dixon (1733), edited Matt Seattle 1995, Dragonfly Music, ; 3rd edition, edited Matt Seattle 2011, . There were tunes with this structure well before the appearance of this tune, but it is perhaps the best known example of the type.


See also

*
Geordie dialect words Geordie ( ), sometimes known in linguistics as Tyneside English or Newcastle English, is an English dialect and accent spoken in the Tyneside area of North East England. It developed as a variety of the old Northumbrian dialect and became espec ...


References


External links


The Bishoprick Garland 1834 by Sharp



“Rhymes of Northern Bards”
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Marley, Elsie 1768 deaths People from County Durham People from Chester-le-Street Northumbrian folklore Year of birth unknown Year of birth uncertain Deaths by drowning in the United Kingdom