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Four Manuscript Fiddler’s Books from the Browne Family Papers now
held in the Armitt Library,Ambleside.
The transcriptions into ABC for the Village Music Project were
done in 2000 by Cherri Graebe and Chris Partington.
These notes by me were first made in December 2000, but I have revised them in response to communications from Hugh Taylor in 2001, Jay Enwright in June 2005, and Sue Allan in April 2007. I append their notes in full at the end of this piece. The changes in my notes are the result of their more complete information regarding inscriptions in the manuscripts.
The Browne family came from the village of Troutbeck, 3
miles from the town of Windermere in the old County of
Westmorland in the English Lake District, which since the boundary
changes of 1974 has formed part of the new County of Cumbria. The
family farm at Troutbeck is now in the possession of The National
Trust.
These Manuscript books are held in the collection of the Armitt
Library in Ambleside. Many of the pages have been subsequently
inscribed in the top corners as ALMS11,
12,13,or 14. I shall refer to them as BF11, 12, 13, or 14
as referring to the family whose books they were.
BF11, 12, 13 are all of similar 4 ½” x 9 ¼” dimension, 4 staves
per page, typical of late 18th/early 19thC manuscript fiddler’s
tune books in good condition. It is difficult to say for sure from
my old photocopy whether the staves are hand drawn or printed. All
the pages have been numbered in what looks to be the same 20thC
hand that added the ALMS11/12/13/14 inscriptions. BF14 is in
poor condition. It is 3” x 9” roughly hand cut paper, stitched
together at home, and ruled by hand with a five-nibbed pen in
three staves. Some pages are loose and some appear to be missing
altogether.
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Transcribed into ABC Music Notation for The Village Music Project
by Cherri Graebe and Chris Partington
(70 tunes)(James Lishman) is largely written in a hand that I
shall refer to as “Lishman” (formerly “Browne A”) (65 tunes). The
selection of tunes in this hand I believe to be consistent with a
date of c1800.e.g. 7 tunes at least are from J.Aird, Playford and
Walsh, the rest are consistent with c1800-10 Country Dances and
Scottish Reels. Spare staves and pages have been infilled in
a markedly different hand that I shall call “Browne B” (5 tunes).
These include The Annan Polka. BF11.70, which makes it unlikely
that this hand is prior to c1850.
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Transcribed into ABC Music Notation for The Village Music Project
by Cherri Graebe and Chris Partington
(34 tunes) starts chronologically in 12th April 1778 with 4
Psalms written in by “John Cook” (formerly “Psalm Hand”) followed
by 13 tunes. One later untitled tune which I have taken the
liberty of naming “Wilson’s Hornpipe. BF12.15” contains the
inscription “J.Wilson, June 18, 1833”, and although this may just
about mean it was collected from J.Wilson, I regard this as
extremely unlikely since I’ve never come across this practice
elsewhere, yet it was certainly common practice at the time to
write your own name randomly in your own MS book, as can be seen
from many of the other Village Music Project MS books on this
Website; therefore I shall refer to this writing as “J.Wilson
Hand”, and since the inscription “Kesswick June 19 1833 appears
with “She Wants A Fellow. BF12.17” I assume that J.Wilson of
Keswick wrote this part of book BF12 in 1833.There are no
quadrilles etc. in this selection, the rep. being more reminiscent
of c1810, (Country Dances and Scottish Reels). These are followed
by 15 tunes in what I shall call “Thomas Browne” formerly “Browne
C”, plus another one that has been inserted in a spare couple of
staves before the Psalms. This must be subsequent to 1833, but it
also contains no quadrilles.
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Transcribed into ABC Music Notation for The Village Music Project
by Cherri Graebe and Chris Partington
(110 tunes) In Dec 2000 I wrote “…is said to have belonged to or had some connection with a dancing master called James Lishman, of whom I have as yet no further details, although I believe more is known. 14 of the tunes, including 2 Polkas, are in the same hand as “Browne B”(c1850) from BF11, so that is what they shall remain for the time being.”
The remaining 96 tunes appear to be in what I previously referred to as “J.Lishman Hand” but is now the “Mystery Hand” . The presence of Latee Quadrille (L’Ete Quadrille), tune 82, suggests a date of around 1820-25 for this portion of the MS, which is well within Lishman’s lifetime, but the handwriting does not match that in MS BF.11.
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Transcribed into ABC Music Notation for The Village Music Project
by Chris Partington
(14 tunes)(Anonymous) is written in a clearly different hand -“Browne D”, though also very similar in notes, letters, clefs etc. to elements of the other Mss. The content is similar too, to the extent that 6 of the 14 tunes are repeated almost identically elsewhere. i.e. Money Musk BF12.06; Jinny O BF13.005; Chips & Shavins BF006; Peggy’s Wedding BF13.008; Russian Dance BF13.009; Boy in the Baskett BF13.010; complete with mis-spelling. These are all J.Lishman(?) c1825 except Money Musk, J.Wilson 1833. I would not like to say positively what the date would be, except to hazard a guess at post 1780 to pre 1820, with the weight on 1810.
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Parson & White Directory 1829 – Drawing & Dancing Master in Troutbeck Bridge.
Mannex Directory 1849 – Dancing Master, Gandy St., Kendal.
Mannex Directory 1851 – Ditto.
Traditional Step Dancing in the Lake District by Tom Flett – He was known to Dorothy Wordsworth who in 1822 compared some children dancing in New Lanark, Robert Owen’s model village (see R.D.Owen MS), to Mr. Lishman’s ball in Ambleside.
Lancaster and Kendal phone book – 32 Lishman entries.
John Cook of Crook
Parson & White Directory 1829 – only Cook in Crooke is a Thomas Cook, Yeoman, Birch Moss
Only references to a John Cook are –
Farmer, Great Strickland, nr. Penrith
Farmer, Sandy Hill, Stavely, next village.
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The Browne family of Troutbeck. (the Browns in the cottages of Troutbeck were related, but the side of the family with the ‘e’ thought themselves rather better!)
The Browne family library contained 1000 – 1500 books, which
reflect what was circulating 200 years ago. George Browne as early
as 1640 had around 1500 onwards books. He died 1783. He was a High
Sheriff of Westmorland, and the family in general could be
regarded as social climbers, although as yeoman farmers they were
very rooted in the countryside and its customs and had antiquarian
interests, being inveterate collectors of books and old furniture.
Most of the books were very practical books on useful agricultural
topics, sheep, brewing etc Gervase Markham’s ‘The Way to get
wealth’ (?), and ‘The Husbandman’s recreation’ as well as books on
law and devotional books. As a young man he read and
collected plays, Dryden etc, and the collection included novels of
17th, 18th and 19th centuries.
There was also a set of 35 chapbooks (three quarters of which previously unrecorded, eg Blind Beggar/Bethnall Green; Carols; A Crafty Chambermaid’s Garland); and these fiddle tune books.
George’s son was Benjamin Browne (1664-1748). Another George
Browne died in 1804, and another was born 1834 … I have yet to
sort out just which Browne collected (and/or used?) the fiddle
tune books, and who bequeathed them to the Armitt Library - as
most of Browne papers are in Cumbria Record Office at Kendal, and
most of the books still at Townend (the house is open to the
public, but its library isn’t)
AL MS 11 has inner front pages inscribed ‘James Lishman’.
Lishman was well-known by Dorothy Wordsworth: whilst on a tour of Scotland in 1822, she visited a school and watching the children dancing, she commented that “the dancing would not have disgraced the Ambleside quality children at Mr Lishman’s ball.”
I found the following information from a Lishman family website: ( ed. -See JD Enwright’s information
below, which is a larger version of the same, and the source
referred to by Sue Allan)
"James Lishman (1777 - 1849) was an artist, drawing teacher and dancing-master who taught in and around the Kendal and Windermere area throughout the first half of the nineteenth century. He may have taught the children of William Wordsworth to dance? He was the eldest of six children of Robert Lishman and Eleanor Wilson of Applethwaite, Windermere and was baptised at St. Martin's Church, Windermere in 1777.
On 25 July 1829 at the
mature age of 52 he married Jane Jackson, 30 years his junior,
in Kendal Parish Church. He was described as being ’of
Ulverston’, but appears in a trade directory of that year as a
dancing master in Troutbeck Bridge, which is also part of
Windermere. It seems likely that he was married prior to this,
but no evidence of a previous marriage has yet been found in
either Ulverston, Windermere or Kendal. He certainly
married again after Jane died, as at his death he left a widow,
Frances.
(being from Ulverston sounds to me quite wrong, and I wonder whether the Lishman who married at Kendal was our James the dancing master at all?)
I have a photocopy of a poster for ‘Mr Lishman’s Ball’ at Keswick
in 1822.
AL MS 12 is inscribed: ‘John Cook, Crook, Born the 12 of April
In yeare of the Lord 1778’
And below: ‘Thomas Browne’s Book
Troutbeck Westmorland, 1833’
… which makes it appear that one of the musical Brownes perhaps acquired an older tune book in order to play from it himself (Probably same as with Lishman book)
AL MS 13 has what an old index (from the Armitt, I
think) describes as: “a ms account on front inner cover;
letterpress rhymes (tonic-sol-fa) inscribed ‘Thomas Browne.’
The above from Sue Allan, March 2007
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Dear Chris,
James Lishman (1777 - 1849) was an artist, drawing teacher and
dancing-master who taught in and around Westmorland and the
Furness area of Lancashire throughout the first half of the
nineteenth century. A friend of mine, and fellow Lishman
researcher, was brought up to believe that William Wordsworth's
children were taught to dance by a Mr. Lishman, but she does not
know the origin of this belief. Certainly he was known to the
Wordsworths, as Dorothy mentions him in the journal of her tour of
Scotland in 1822. She was impressed by the dancing prowess of the
cotton-mill workers' children at New Lanark and commented "The
dancing would not have disgraced the Ambleside quality children at
Mr. Lishman's ball" (quoted in Traditional Step-Dancing in
Lakeland by J.F. & T.M.Flett, published 1979 by EFDSS).
He taught dancing, and held balls, throughout the Lake District - certainly at Keswick, Ambleside and Grange-over-Sands. There is a letter in Kendal Records Office discussing possible lessons at Sedbergh school, but I do not know if these materialised. He was also an artist, and taught drawing at his home in Castle Street, Kendal.
e was the eldest of six children of Robert and Eleanor Lishman of Applethwaite, part of the Parish of Windermere. He was baptised at St. Martin's Church, Windermere in 1777. His mother was the daughter of James Wilson, the blacksmith in Troutbeck Bridge, who, in 1770, built a new dwelling and smithy at the bottom of St. Catharine's Brow, where it joined the new turnpike road from Kendal to Ambleside, and had it licensed as an inn. It remained in the Wilson family until 1853, and there is still an inn there today, where copies of documents pertaining to the family (including James Wilson's will) are framed on the walls.
A younger James Wilson, grandson of the blacksmith and thus a cousin of James Lishman, married Dorothy Browne, daughter of George Browne of Townend, Troutbeck in 1818. Townend belonged to the Browne family from at least 1525 until 1944, when it was sold and later transferred to the National Trust complete with much of its original furnishings. Some of the family's papers (including James Lishman's Music Book) were donated to the Armitt Museum in Ambleside.
On July 25, 1829, at the mature age of 52, James Lishman married Jane Jackson, 30 years his junior, in Kendal Parish Church. He was described as being "of Ulverston", but he appears in a trade directory of that year as a dancing master in Troutbeck Bridge. It seems likely that he was married prior to this, but no evidence of a previous marriage has yet been found in either Ulverston, Windermere or Kendal. Jane died in 1841, and three years later he married a widow, Frances Ormandy.
James and Jane had five children James William, Eleanor Emma, Anne Amelia, Robert Wilson and Ann Amelia. Eleanor died unmarried at the age of 19. Anne Amelia presumably died in childhood before the birth of her namesake. The second Ann Amelia died in 1852 at the age of 11. James and Robert both moved to London after their father's death in 1849.
JD Enwright, June 2005
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BF11 was therefore started by James Lishman, who I formerly referred to as Browne A, in c1800-10.It passed to Brown B in about1850, who entered 5 more tunes.
BF12 was by a person I shall assume to be J.Wilson, of Keswick, in
1833, in a book that had previously been used by another person,
John Cook of Crook, 1778, for writing four Psalms and some other
tunes in. This book then passed to Thomas Browne, (formerly Browne
C) c1833, who entered more tunes.
BF13 was started by a person I previously assumed to be James
Lishman, Dancing Master, c1825. I was wrong in identifying it
thus. He or she has become the Mystery Hand. The book then passed
to Browne B, who entered some more tunes, along with some in BF11.
BF14 was wholly written by a person I shall call Browne D in about
1810. It was heavily copied by Mystery Hand (formerly J.Lishman)
in about 1825.If this was in the possession of Mystery Hand it may
have passed to Browne B, 1850., along with BF11 and 13.
Admittedly a complex picture, and merely my interpretation/guess
in places, but my best guess anyway.
Further information concerning the family ties between the
Lishmans, Brownes and Wilsons can be found in the items provided
by Sue Allan and Jay Enwright above.
What is clear is that by 1850 at the latest, books BF11/13 were in
the possession of one person, Browne B, who wrote in both of them,
and we may suppose BF12,14 also were in his possession. James
Lishman seems to have owned BF13 at some point, according to
reports, and they were certainly in the possession of the Browne
family of Troutbeck, Westmoreland, when they were collected by
whoever it was who donated them to the Armitt Library so that they
may be used by future generations to enjoy.
BF11a---James Lishman (formerly Browne A) c1800-10
BF11b---Browne B c1850
BF12a---Thomas Browne (formerly Browne C)c1835
BF12b---John Cook (formerly Psalm hand) 1778
BF12c---J.Wilson 1833
BF12d---Thomas Browne (formerly Browne C) c1833 -
BF13a---Mystery Hand (formerly J. Lishman), c1825
BF13b---Browne B c1850
BF14-----Browne D c1810
Chris Partington. 18/12/00, revised May 2007
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