Death of Nelson, The

DESCRIPTION: "Come all you gallant seamen and give me a meeting." The song tells how an enemy shot mortally wounds Nelson. The doctor can do nothing. He had fought many battles, and lost an arm and an eye. England is told to mourn Nelson and bless Collingwood
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1866 (broadside Bodleian Curzon b.24(100)=Harding B 11(2624))
KEYWORDS: sailor death
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1758-1805 - Life of Horatio Nelson, victor at Aboukir (the Nile), Copenhagen, and Trafalgar
Oct 21, 1805 - Battle of Trafalgar
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Wolf-AmericanSongSheets, #462, p. 31, "The Death of Nelson" (1 reference)
ADDITIONAL: Leslie Shepard, _The Broadside Ballad_, Legacy Books, 1962, 1978, p. 149, "The Cruel Ship's Carpenter" (reproduction of a broadside page with "The Cruel Ship's Carpenter" and "Death of Lord Nelson")
Roud #3549
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Curzon b.24(100)=Harding B 11(2624), "Death of Nelson!," J. Harkness (Preston), 1840-1866; also Firth c.12(446)=c.19(74), J, Forth (Pocklington), n.d.; Firth c.12(44), H. Such, London, 1863-1885; Harding B 11(833)=Johnson Ballads 3350, G. Henson (Northampton), n.d.; Harding B 11(836), unknown, n.d.; Harding B 11(834)=Johnson Ballads 410=Johnson Ballads 411, W. S. Fortey (London), 1858-1885
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Nelson's Victory at Trafalgar (Brave Nelson)" [Laws J17] and references there (subject)
SAME TUNE:
Parody on "The Death of Nelson" (by Charles R. Thatcher, in "Thatcher's Colonial Songster") (Thatcher-ColonialMinstrel-Songsters, pp. 94-95)
NOTES [88 words]: Roud lumps two types of song, both called "(The) Death of (Lord) Nelson," under one number. But they appear to me distinct. This one begines "Come all you galland seamean"; the other starts typically "O'er Nelson's tomb with silent grief oppress'd." The other version seems to have been the more popular, but neither seems to have had any real traditional life; they are known from masses of broadsides, not from field collections.
For more about Nelson, see e.g. "Nelson's Victory at Trafalgar (Brave Nelson)" [Laws J17]. - RBW
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File: BdTDeoNe

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