Until the 1800s popular songs were mostly anonymous, but urbanisation and the rise of the music hall (in the USA, Vaudeville) made the singers famous. Some wrote their own songs while a few songwriters turned out most of the rest. All social classes flocked to the Victorian and Edwardian halls to hear the hit songs of the day, much to the alarm of respectable society.

While many songs were sentimental and innocuous – and in wartime patriotic or even jingoistic – risqué songs offended the authorities, and others were the protest songs of their day, resulting in the threat of censorship, of magistrates refusing licences, of contracts banning artists from supposed vulgarities, and of legal action. In 1890 the Folly Music Hall, Manchester and Miss Peggy Pryde were summonsed for ‘lewdness and indecency’, a ‘grossly indecent song’, and ‘making an indecent exhibition on stage’.

Music hall stars were something new, with young celebrities rising from the lower classes, and to the delight of their audiences, they were not prudish. Marie Lloyd, who sang about ‘the little bits (of her body) that the boys admire’, was famous for her innuendo-ridden performances. The title of her song ‘A Little of What You Fancy’ (1915) soon became a catchphrase. Another title, ‘She Sits among the Cabbages and Peas’, had lyrics which offended some. When told to change the words, she cheekily just changed it to ‘she sits among the cabbages and leeks’.

‘Marie’ was born in Shoreditch as Matilda Alice Victoria Wood, and can be found on the 1911 census as a music hall artiste staying at the Salisbury Hotel, Boscombe. (You can read more about her in Issue 6 (2017) of the Discover Your Ancestors printed annual.)

“ He’d made himself at home before he’d been with us a day
He kissed Mamma and all of us, cos Papa was away”

In ‘Riding on Top of an Omnibus’, by George W. Hunter, we hear of another liaison:

“ Then I saw a giddy, married lady
Flirting with the lodger on the sly”

Performances could cause offence as well as the lyrics. Lottie Collins accompanied her song ‘Ta Ra Ra Boom De Ay’ (1891) with a risqué high-kick skirt dance, and Vesta Tilley (1864–1952), born Matilda Alice Powles, famous for singing ‘Burlington Bertie’ (1900), dressed as a man. Some disapproved of women in trousers, including Queen Mary, who averted her eyes from Vesta at a Royal Command performance.

Music halls not only had a reputation for bawdiness. Some, like the feminist Laura Ormiston Chant, complained they attracted prostitutes, and in 1881 the Portsmouth Evening News claimed a local music hall set aside a place especially for them.

Working-class life was dire and the songs provided a welcome relief, often being composed with working audiences in mind. ‘Don’t Dilly Dally’ (1919) is about a couple doing a ‘moonlight flit’: the common practice of moving house at night to avoid rent arrears.

“We had to move away
’cause the rent
we couldn’t pay
the moving van came round
just after dark”

Domestic violence was commonplace with many women seeking medical attention for injuries inflicted by drunken husbands. Marie Lloyd’s ‘I’m a Bit of a Ruin that Cromwell Knocked about a Bit’ not only struck chords with the audience, it also reflected her own experience of domestic abuse at the hands of two violent husbands.

Today’s rappers were not the first to use music to attack the police. ‘Ask a Policeman’ (1888) is a song about corrupt policemen, made popular by James Fawn (1847–1923), who, dressed as a policeman, peppered the song with nods and winks. The Victorian working class frequently mistrusted the police, who, it was claimed, stole pocket watches from arrested drunks.

“ Every member of the force
Has a watch and chain, of course,
How he got it, from what source? Ask a policeman.”

We also have ‘PC Green’ as performed by Harry Campion (1865–1942), who was particularly popular with working-class Londoners.

“ The other night I proudly caught a burglar you know
But I found it was a pal of mine and had to let him go”

In 1915 a Birmingham theatre manager was fined because of some of Harry Campion’s ‘indecent and improper’ songs. Harry responded: ‘I am paid for making people laugh, not for singing hymns.’

The newspapers and the church thought too many songs glorified crime and vice. They might have had in mind W.G. Ross’s hard-hitting ‘Ballad of Sam Hall’ (c.1840), an updated version of an old folk song, performed at the Cyder Cellars in Covent Garden to packed crowds. The lyrics narrate the thoughts of an unrepentant murderer facing execution, such as ‘I hate you one and all, damn your eyes’. A version of this song was later recorded by Johnny Cash. ‘Allays in Jail’, performed by Gus Elen (1862–1940), also looked at things from a criminal’s perspective.

“For strange to say one of us always seem to be in jail
When I com’d out I found that Liza was in prison still
While ordering our wedding cake, she simply pinched the till”

Gus, born Ernest Augustus Elen in Pimlico, was an egg packer, draper’s assistant and barman before he took to singing in pubs.

Much to the annoyance of the temperance movement, many songs celebrated drinking: Gus Elen sung about ale and Bessie Belwood (1856–96) about stout. ‘I Belong to Glasgow’ (1921), written and sang by Will Fyffe (1885–1947), based on an actual encounter with a Glaswegian drunk, has become forever associated with the city.

Songs directly attacked the contemporary social conditions. Homelessness was highlighted by ‘I Live in Trafalgar Square’ (1902), by C.W. Murphy and performed by Morny Cash (1872–1938).

“I live in Trafalgar Square with four lions to guard me
I’ll own it’s a trifle draughty but I look at it this way you see
If it’s good enough for Nelson, it’s quite good enough for me”

The homeless were legion in London, with people sleeping in doorways, stairwells, benches and indeed Trafalgar Square, sometimes with old sacks and newspapers for beds.

‘The Workhouse Gate’, co-written and performed by Herbert Shelley (1870–1921), attacks the injustice of the workhouse.

“The next one who came was a working man
With his bundle of tools on his back
For days he had wandered in the rain, sleet and hail
On hunger’s long, pitiless track”

‘The City Waif’ performed by Jenny Hill (1849–1896) dwells on child poverty.

“Out of my bed in a doorway, bobbies all hunt me down
And no home have I, beneath the sky, but the streets of London town”

The police often left rough sleepers alone, but when word came from above, they clamped down. Jenny, daughter to a Marylebone cab driver, had a hard life herself, singing in pubs until 2 am and getting up three hours later to wash glasses and scrub floors.

The ruling classes were more often than not made fun of. George W. Hunter’s ‘In a Dark and Dreary Sky’, tells of a gentleman who wanted to do something that didn’t need brains and so went into politics. A ballad of socialism performed and co-written by Hugh E. Wright (1879–1940), is more about class warfare.

“Shall we smoke our woodbines, five a penny there you are
While the bloated aristocracy can smoke a bob cigar”

Mrs F.R. Phillips sang against discrimination against the Irish with ‘No Irish Need Apply’. It was one of several songs written in reaction to notices such as Help wanted, No Irish need apply. It was not uncommon for those with Irish accents to be barred from jobs, public houses or employment.

There were also feminist songs. ‘Happy’ Fanny Shields (1881–1961), born in New York City of Polish and German Jewish descent, travelled to London in 1902 and became a music hall star. One of her songs was ‘The Suffragette’.

“…we must admit the suffragettes have pluck
They’re sure to get the vote some day with an ounce of luck”

Although genteel middle-class writers remorselessly attacked music hall songs as puerile, subversive and vulgar, the masses loved them and the stars grew ever more famous (and rich). Sheet music sold well and the lyrics became widely known. But it couldn’t last for ever. After a series of fires caused halls to ban eating and drinking, they became more like theatres, and when the cinema arrived along with new music like ragtime and jazz, music hall songs were consigned to history. {

For further information:
British Music Hall History by Richard Anthony Baker, Pen & Sword History

Song lyrics