The Farmer's Boy

The earliest written record of the song is under the name "The Lucky Farmer's Boy" in an 1832 catalogue of street ballads printed in London by James Catnach.[1] In 1857, the compiler of a book of "Songs of the Peasantry of England" wrote; "There is no question that the Farmer's Boy is a very ancient song; it is highly popular amongst the north country lads and lasses. The date of the composition may probably be referred to the commencement of the last century... The song is popular all over the country, and there are numerous printed copies, ancient and modern."[2] Frank Kidson the English musicologist and folk song collector wrote in 1891, "Even now, the popularity of 'The Farmer's Boy' is great among country singers". Although he said that there was little variation in the text, he included three melodies and a fourth in an appendix, none of which is the most widely known one today.[3]

The Baptist Church at Little Leigh where Thomas Fownes Smith preached. He is said to have been the original "Farmer's Boy"

A legend in Little Leigh, Cheshire, suggests that the song is based on the life of the Reverend Thomas Fownes Smith (1802-1866) and was written by his brother-in-law, Charles Whitehead (born 1792). Smith was the minister at Little Leigh Baptist Chapel for more than 30 years, where a plaque in his memory is located on the inside rear wall.[4] It is one of three folk songs traditionally sung by participants ahead of the Haxey Hood, a traditional mob football game held annually in North Lincolnshire at Epiphany[5]

The tune most commonly associated with "The Farmer's Boy" comes from "Ye Sons of Albion", a patriotic song from the Napoleonic Wars.[6] That particular tune and song were first noted in 1909 in Oxfordshire by Janet Blunt of Adderbury Manor. It is this melody that has been arranged as a regimental march for the Royal Canadian Medical Service, a number of Commonwealth regiments including the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment[7] and the Duke of Edinburgh's Royal Regiment. Although not the official marching tune of the Suffolk Regiment, it was played and sung by the band and men of the regiment's 4th Battalion on the march in France during the First World War.

In 1908, the famous composer and folk song collector Percy Grainger made a phonograph recording of a Mr. Tandy of Winchcombe, Gloucestershire singing a fragment of the song,[8] which can be heard on the British Library Sound Archive website.[9] Mark Anderson of Middleton-in-Teasdale, County Durham, the original source of the famous Scarborough Fair melody,[10] sang the song to Alan Lomax in 1951,[11] the recording of which is available online via the Alan Lomax archive.[12] Peter Kennedy (1953) and Alan Lomax (1954)[13] recorded Jags Plough of Barrow-on-Humber, Lincolnshire singing the song. Folk song collector Ken Stubbs recorded several versions in the 1960s and 70s in Sussex,[14][15] Surrey[16] and Cornwall,[17] including one by the Sussex singer Pop Maynard, all of which can be heard on the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library website. The traditional singers Walter Pardon of Knapton, Norfolk (1985)[18] and Fred Jordan of Ludlow, Shropshire (1990/91)[19] were recorded singing versions of the song.

Figures such as John Lomax, Alan Lomax, Mary Elizabeth Barnicle, Helen Hartness Flanders, Helen Creighton, Edith Fowke collected and recorded versions all across the United States and Canada around the middle of the twentieth century.[20][21][22][23][24]