Singer: John Dade
Named ‘Jack’ by George Butterworth on his two definite songs, John Dade probably knew the ‘Harvest Song’ he sang on December 20th 1911 very well indeed as he had worked on farms in the area for at least 50 years and quite possibly heard it sung during each one of them. Born in the third Quarter of 1843, he was described in 1861 as an agricultural labourer aged 17, when he had probably been out to work for 6 years already, and was still doing the same sort of jobs in 1901. The first record of him entering the Depwade Union Workhouse in Pulham is on November 23rd 1909 when he would have been 66 years old thus giving a possible working life on farms of no less than 55 years. He discharged himself 7 months later but was back again in November 1910 and a year after that Vaughan Williams was presumably glad to hear him sing his 2, possibly 3, songs there.
December 19 1911
Singer: David Took
David Took was only 13 when his mother died in 1853, but he had already been working as a farmer’s boy for 2 years. On the 1861 census David is still living at home with his father and 2 younger sisters, but by the time his father died in 1877, David had been in lodgings at the Crown in Pulham for at least 6 years. By 1881 he was still a boarder but had moved to The Street, Pulham and was lodging with 45 year-old widow Hannah Paine and her sons Arthur (16) and Harry (15).
December 20 1911
Rose of Britain’s Isle (Roud 1796)
Singer: Jonas Stevenson
Compared to some of the other singers encountered by Vaughan Williams, Jonas Stevenson had a very uneventful life. If you look at the 1861 and 1871 census returns they are identical except for him, his wife and their 3 children all getting 10 years older. Nothing else notable happened in 10 years! Jonas spent all his life at Flaxlands in Carleton Rode except for some or all his last years which were in the workhouse at Pulham just 6 miles as the crow flies to the south east.
December 20 1911