Sandy Hobbs & David Cornwell | Dear Mister Thoms # 35, 1994
ln DMT 33, Sandy Hobbs had a preliminary look at the story of the hanging of the monkey, which is associated with several places in Britain. He expressed himself “agnostic” on the rival claims of Hartlepool (North East England) and Boddam (North East Scotland) to be the “true” origin of the story. Further investigations now lead us to support the case of Hartlepool against Boddam.
We are grateful to Ian Russell for drawing our attention to Keith Gregson’s book Corvan: A Victorian Entertainer and his Songs (Banbury: Kemble, 1983). This book provides an approximate date for the first appearance of the song later known as “The Fishermen Hung The Monkey, O.” In Hartlepool Public Library there is a balladsheet, “Who Hung the Monkey” in which the song is said to have been “written and sung by Mr E, Corvan with immense applause at the Dock Hotel Music Hall, Southgate, Hartlepool.” A local history has suggested 1854 or 1855 as the date of this performance. This balladsheet thus almost certainly predates by several years the 1862 publication of the song in Tyneside Ballads to which Sandy Hobbs referred previously. Gregson also draws attention to to publication in 1827 of two other songs in which monkeys are mistaken for humans, “The Sandhill Monkey” and “The Baboon.” In the latter, the baboon is mistaken for “a hairy French spy.” We thus have evidence of the sort of song culture in North East England in which Corvan was working.
As mentioned in DMT 33, James Drummond argues that the song originated in North East Scotland and that Corvan adapted it, after having heard it sung by Scottish fisherfolk working in Hartlepool. Drummond has in mind the practice which existed at one time whereby, after the Scottish herring fishing season had finished, men and women from Scottish fishing ports travelled to English East coast fishing centres, the men to fish and the women to cure the herring. However, this happened rather too late to help Drummond’s case. Gray (1978) says that a few Fife fishermen began this practice on a small scale in the l860s but that it was considerably later in the nineteenth century before the practice developed on a large scale. Oral history supports economic history on this point. Butcher (1987) quotes an informant born in 1892 in Peterhead (near Boddam) who says that in her mother‘s day there was no seasonal migration to the English ports. Thus it is unlikely that Corvan would have heard Scottish fishermen’s
songs in Hartlepool in the l850s.
For ease of reference we have included a chronological table. We suggest that this table is most easily intrepreted assupporting a move from Hartlepool to Boddam rather than Boddam to Hartlepool as Drummond claims. If Scottish fisherfolk took the song and the story back home with them from England, this would represent- a known trend. Peter Hall tells us that folksongs have moved readily up and down the East coast of Britain. A number of English songs have been collected in North East Scotland, for example, “Scarborough’s Banks,” “Bold Princess Royal,” and “Grace Darling.”
Chronological Table
| N.E. ENGLAND | N.E. SCOTLAND | |
|---|---|---|
| 1827 | Songs The Samihill Monkey and The Baboon published. | |
| 1854/55 | Who Hung the Monkey performed in Hartlepool; balladsheet printed. | |
| 1860s | Scottish herring fishing boats begin to extend their season by operating from English East coast ports. | |
| 1862 | The Fishermen Hung the Monkey, O published in Tyneside Ballads. | |
| 1890s | Large scale herring fishing from English East coast ports by N.E. Scottish boats. | |
| 1907 | The Fishermen Hanged the Monkey O collected, Cullen. | |
| 1930s | Drummond hears about the Boddam Monkey. | |
| 1950 | Boddam story in Neish’s Old Peterhead. | |
| 1965 | And the Boddamers Hanged the Monkey O appears in print. | |
Additional References
David Butcher, Following the Fishing. Newton Abbott: David and Charles, 1987.
Malcolm Gray, The Fishing Industries of Scotland, 179O–1914. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978.