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BF11/12/13/14
Four Manuscript Fiddler’s Books from the Browne Family Papers now held in the Armitt Library,Ambleside. The Browne Family came from the village of Troutbeck, 3 miles from the town of Windermere in the old County of Westmorland in the English Lake District, which since the boundary changes of 1974 has formed part of the new County of Cumbria. These Manuscript books are held in the collection of the Armitt Library in Ambleside. Many of the pages have been subsequently inscribed in the top corners as ALMS11, 12,13,or 14. I shall refer to them as BF11, 12,13,or 14 as referring to the family whose books they were. BF11, 12,13 are all of similar 4 1⁄2” x 9 1⁄4” dimension, 4 staves per page, typical of late 18th/early 19thC manuscript fiddler’s tune books in good condition. It is difficult to say for sure from my old photocopy whether the staves are hand drawn or printed. All the pages have been numbered in what looks to be the same 20thC hand that added the ALMS11/12/13/14 inscriptions.BF14 is in poor condition. It is 3” x 9” roughly hand cut paper, stitched together at home, and ruled by hand with a five nibbed pen in three staves. Some pages are loose and some appear to be missing altogether.
BF11 (70 tunes)(Anonymous) is largely written in a hand that I shall refer to as “Browne A” (65 tunes) .The selection of tunes in this hand I believe to be consistent with a date of c1800.e.g. 7 tunes at least are from J.Aird, Playford and Walsh from late 17thC, the rest are consistent with c1800-10 Country Dances and Scotch Reels. Spare staves and pages have been infilled in a markedly different hand that I shall call “Browne B” (5 tunes). These include The Annan Polka. BF11.70, which makes it unlikely that this hand is prior to c1850.
BF12 (34 tunes) starts chronologically with 4 Psalms in “Psalm Hand” followed by 13 tunes. One untitled tune which I have taken the liberty of naming “Wilson’s Hornpipe. BF12.15” contains the inscription “J.Wilson, June 18,1833”, and although this may just about mean it was collected from J.Wilson, I regard this as extremely unlikely since I’ve never come across this practice elsewhere, yet it was certainly common practice at the time to write your own name in your own MS book, as can be seen from many of the other Village Music Project MS books on this Website; therefore I shall refer to this writing as “J.Wilson Hand”, and since the inscription “Kesswick June 19 1833 appears with “She Wants A Fellow. BF12.17” we can confidently assume that J.Wilson of Keswick wrote this part of book BF12 in 1833.There are no Quadrilles etc. in this selection, the rep. being more reminiscent of c1810., Country Dances and Scotch reels. These are followed by 15 tunes in what I shall call “Browne C” plus another one that has been inserted in a spare couple of staves before the Psalms. This must be subsequent to 1833, but it also contains no quadrilles.
BF13 (110 tunes) is said to have belonged to or had some connection with a dancing master called James Lishman, of whom I have as yet no further details, although I believe more is known. 14 of the tunes, including 2 Polkas, are in the same hand as “Browne B”(c1850) from BF11, so that is what they shall remain for the time being. The remaining 96 tunes appear to be in what I shall refer to as “J.Lishman Hand”. It may of couse be the other way round in reality. The presence of Latee Quadrille (L’Ete Quadrille), tune 82, suggests a date of around 1820-25 for this portion of the MS.
BF14 (14 tunes)(Anonymous) is written in a clearly different hand -“Browne D”, though also very similar in notes, letters, clefs etc. to elements of the other Mss. The content is similar too, to the extent that 6 of the 14 tunes are repeated almost identically elsewhere. i.e. Money Musk BF12.06.Jinny O. BF13.005, Chips & Shavins. BF006.Peggy’s Wedding. BF13.008, Russian Dance. BF13.009, Boy in the Baskett. BF13.010, complete with mis-spelling.These are all J.Lishman(?)c1825 except Money Musk, J.Wilson 1833.I would not like to say positively what the date would be, except to hazard a guess at post 1780 to pre 1820, with the weight on 1810.
Table 1
BF11a---Browne A c1800-10
BF11b---Browne B c1850
BF12a---Browne C c1835
BF12b---Psalms c1800
BF12c---J.Wilson 1833
BF12d---Browne C c1835-
BF13a---James Lishman(?), c1825
BF13b---Browne B c1850
BF14-----Browne D c1810
BF11 was therefore started by an unknown person I shall call Browne A, in c1800-10.It passed to Brown B, 1850, who entered 5 more tunes.
BF12 was started by a person I shall assume to be J.Wilson, of Keswick, in 1833, in a book that had previously been used by another person for writing four Psalms in. This book then passed to a person I shall call Browne C c1835, who entered more tunes.
BF13 was started by a person I have assumed to be James Lishman, Dancing Master, c1825. I may be wrong in identifying him thus. The book then passed to a person I shall call Browne B, who entered some more tunes, along with some in BF11.
BF14 was wholly written by a person I shall call Browne D in about 1810. It was heavily copied by J.Lishman(?) in about 1825.If this was in the possession of Lishman it may have passed to Browne B, 1850., along with BF11,13.
Browne B not “James Lishman (?)” may in fact be James Lishman, or James Lishman may not have had anything to do with producing the books, and none of the persons involved may have been called Browne.
What is clear is that by 1850 at the latest, books BF11/13 were in the possession of one person, Browne B, who wrote in both of them, and we may suppose BF12,14 also were in his possession. James Lishman seems to have owned BF13 at some point, according to reports, and they were certainly in the possession of the Browne family of Troutbeck, Westmoreland, when they were collected by whoever it was who donated them to the Armitt Library so that they may be used by future generations to enjoy.
These notes may need to be changed as further information gathers.
Chris Partington. 18/12/00