Sam Hall

[Robin Hamilton]

For some time it has been accepted that the singer W.G.Ross was responsible
for the transition of Jack Hall into the more familiar Sam Hall, when he
sang a song about the Sam Hall in London in the 1840s.  V.A.C.Gatrell in
_The Hanging Tree_ (1994), p. 142, further notes a link with the song
intitled "Sam Hall, chimney sweep" found in the Madden Collection, II.687.

The final three (of five) stanzas which Gatrell prints from the Madden
version are identical to the final three (of six) stanzas of two copies of
the ballad with that title found in the Bodleian Collection -- Harding B
15(274b) and Harding B 20(27).

That this was the very ballad as Ross sang it in the Cider Cellars in London
in the nineteenth century can be shown from a description to be found in
_Punch_, Vol. 16 (Jan-June 1874), p. 114, in "Mr. Pips his Diary" (printed
above a drawing of Ross singing the ballad in "A Cydere Cellare" [sic])
which parallels stanza by stanza the text found in the Bodleian broadsheet:

"
But the thing that did most take me was to see and hear one Ross sing the
song of SAM HALL the chimney-sweep, going to be hanged: for he had begrimed
his muzzle to look unshaven, and in rusty black clothes, with a battered old
Hat on his crown  and a short Pipe in his mouth, did sit upon the platform,
leaning over the back of a chair: so making believe that he was on his way
to Tyburn.  And then he did sing to a dismal Psalm-tune, how that his name
was SAM HALL, and that he had been a great Thief, and was now about to pay
for all with his life [1];  and thereupon he swore an Oath  [CHORUS line],
which did make me somewhat shiver, though divers laughed at it.  Then, in so
many verses, how his Master had badly taught him and now he must hang for it
[2];  how he should ride up Holborn Hill in a Cart [3], and the Sheriffs
["sheriff" in the Bodleian text] would come and preach to him [4], and after
them would come the Hangman [5]; and at the end of each verse he did repeat
his Oath [CHORUS line].  Last of all, how that he should go up to the
Gallows; and desired the Prayers of his Audience [6], and ended by cursing
them all round [CHORUS line].

"

I've inserted numbers in square brackets indicating the particular stanza of
Harding b15 (276b) to which the comment corresponds -- all and only the six
stanzas appear in this description in _Punch_, which is remarkably specific
and entirely consistent with the broadside text.

http://books.google.com/books?id=WShXAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA114&dq=punch+%22sam+hall%22&ei=piTrSs6nK4PUM5SciPEL#v=onepage&q=punch%20%22sam%20hall%22&f=false

Taking the link between Ross and "Sam Hall, chimney sweep" as a given allows
certain observations to be made.  Whoever was responsible for the actual
composition of this version of the ballad, whether Ross or A.N.Other, was
familiar with both contemporary London Flash speech and the history of
Tyburn.  The version introduces Flash terms not present before.  Newly
introduced terms which suggest an intrusion of Flash would be "flam", "bam",
and "tip", more probably "sheriff" as used in the ballad, and certainly the
term "gallows" used as an intensifying adverb.

Moreover, the ballad has Hall take the correct (for 1707) route from Newgate
to Tyburn, pausing at St. Giles for a final drink.  Some versions,
(re)written presumably after 1783 when hangings shifted from Tyburn to
outside Newgate itself, rather absurdly have Hall going up a non-existent
Tyburn Hill rather than the geographically correct Holborn Hill.

Robin Hamilton

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