Down Jewry Lane I met a Butcher Boy- Winifred Gill (Glou) 1924 Collinson
[From: Francis Collinson Manuscript Collection (COL/5/39A). MS lines aren't organized into stanzas. The first stanza although corrupt mention "butcher boy." The second stanza is closer to Sailor Boy than Butcher Boy while the next stanzas seem to be Butcher Boy.
R. Matteson 2017]
Collinson notes: (Evidently the two phrases of the tune were alternated to suit the rhythm of the words, but the exact sequence is not clear.)
Down Jewry (Drury) Lane I met a Butcher Boy- Collected by Miss Winifred M. Gill from the singing of Barton Hill (Bristol) children in 1924. Tune noted down from Miss Gill by F. M. Collinson in December, 1942.
[Music]
Down Jewry Lane I met a butcher boy
He courted all my life away
He would not stay in any one town
Oh mother dear what pains I have to bear
“Give me a chair” and then she did begin,
She wrote it long, she wrote it wide.
And every line she shed a tear.
She wrote it long, she wrote it wide.
And every line was “William Dear”
Upstairs she went; the door she locked.
That afternoon her father came home (did come home?)
“Oh where, oh where, my daughter dear?”
“Oh where, oh where, my daughter dear?”
Upstairs he went, the door he broke
He found her hanging from a rope
And in her bosom he found this note
“My cruel lover you courted all my life away.”
And on my grave you’ll find two doves
And these two doves will remind you that I died of love.