''The Tyneside Songster'' (or to give it its full title – "The Tyneside Songster containing a splendid collection of Local Songs by popular Authors, in the Northumbrian Dialect Printed by J W Swanston, 67 & 69 St Andrews Street, Newcastle and may be had at all Booksellers, Newsagents, &c" is a
chapbook
A chapbook is a small publication of up to about 40 pages, sometimes bound with a saddle stitch.
In early modern Europe a chapbook was a type of printed street literature. Produced cheaply, chapbooks were commonly small, paper-covered bookle ...
of
Geordie
Geordie () is a nickname for a person from the Tyneside area of North East England, and the dialect used by its inhabitants, also known in linguistics as Tyneside English or Newcastle English. There are different definitions of what constitut ...
folk song
Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be c ...
consisting of 39 songs, crammed into its meagre 16 pages, and published in the 1880s by
J. W. Swanston
J. W. Swanston was a Newcastle printer, and publisher of many Chapbooks. The premises were in St Andrews Street, off Gallowgate, and is now quite near St James' Park, the home of Newcastle United F.C., although this ground was not built unti ...
, a
Newcastle printer and publisher.
The publication
The contents include a general collection of, either at that time or sometime earlier, well known and popular, local songs written by a collection of songwriters.
A set of the original documents is retained by the Tyne & Wear Archives and Museum Service. This is the record office for the cities and districts of
Newcastle,
Gateshead
Gateshead () is a large town in northern England. It is on the River Tyne's southern bank, opposite Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle to which it is joined by seven bridges. The town contains the Gateshead Millennium Bridge, Millennium Bridge, Sage ...
,
Sunderland
Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...
,
South Tyneside and
North Tyneside.
The front cover of the book was as thus :-
THE
Tyneside
SONGSTER
CONTAINING
A splendid collection of Local Songs by
popular Authors, in the Northumbrian
Dialect
– - – - – - – - – - – -
– - – - – - – - – - – -
NEWCASTLE
Printed by J W SWANSTON, 67 & 69 St Andrews Street
and may be had at all Booksellers, Newsagents, &c
– - – - – - – - – - – -
One, two, or three copies of this Song Book may be had direct from the
Printer, for the published price, with an additional halfpenny for postage,
and will be sent to any address in the United Kingdom. Larger numbers
at the same rate.
On the top right, above the title, is printed the price, “
One Penny”
Contents
are as below :-
Notes
Due to the only copy of the book available being damaged, it was not able to ascertain the page numbers of many of the songs. Therefore, the second section the above, list those songs in alphabetic order.
Can anyone help with the numbering of these pages?
See also
*
Geordie dialect words
*
J. W. Swanston
J. W. Swanston was a Newcastle printer, and publisher of many Chapbooks. The premises were in St Andrews Street, off Gallowgate, and is now quite near St James' Park, the home of Newcastle United F.C., although this ground was not built unti ...
References
External links
FARNE archive – click “Tyneside songster” and “go”
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tyneside Songster by J. W. Swanston
English folk songs
Songs related to Newcastle upon Tyne
Northumbrian folklore
1880s books
Chapbooks