Lamentation of W. Warner, T. Ward, & T. Williams, The

DESCRIPTION: "It's melancholy to relate Of three young men who met their fate, Cut off just in the bloom of day, For robbing on the king's highway." One of the robbers describes attacking Mr. Greenway at Nuneaton. They are taken, tried, and swiftly condemned to death
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 2014 (Atkinson/Roud), but clearly published in the first half of the nineteenth century
KEYWORDS: robbery trial execution death warning
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Jul 1, 1818 - Warner, Ward, and Williams beat and rob George Greenway in Warwickshire (source: Palmer)
Jul 14, 1818 - The three are hanged
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
ADDITIONAL: Roy Palmer, "'Birmingham Broadsides and Oral Tradition" -- essay found in David Atkinson and Steve Roud, Editors, _Street Ballads in Nineteenth-Century Britain, Ireland, and North America: The Interface between Print and Oral Tradition_, Ashgate, 2014, pp. 53-54, "The Lamentation of W. Warner, T. Ward, & T. Williams" (1 text)
Roud #3207
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Three Brothers in Fair Warwickshire" (theme)
NOTES [134 words]: Palmer connects this with a broadside, "Three Brothers in Fair Warwickshire." Roud accepts the equivalence. There are certainly common elements -- the age of the young men (18, 19, 20), the fact that they are in Warwickshire, the fact that they rob someone whose name starts with "Gr...." But there are substantial differences, too. In this broadside, the three are not brothers; in the song, they are. The song adds a scene with the three brothers' mother bewail their fate. Only about half the verses have the same general contents. The song can't even decide whether it's in first or third person. My guess is that the song has taken on material from the broadside but that it either started as something else or was deliberately remade. Either way, I'd call it a separate although related song. - RBW
Last updated in version 5.0
File: AtRo053B

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