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Chapter 3 - page 3
The Billy Barlow Broadsides. In Britain between the 16th and the 20th centuries, the song-sheets known as the broadside ballads were sold on the streets for a penny or a half-penny each. They were printed on one side with the words of a song, usually a note about the tune to be used, and sometimes an illustration printed from a woodcut. The picture often had little to do with the song that accompanied it, which makes for some rather startling observations when you study the broadsides that still exist in collections. Rarely was the author of the words credited. During the 19th century some broadsides were printed with two or more songs so that the seller could sell them separately or as one sheet. Many old and beautiful ballads and many interesting topical songs survived because of the broadsides. Some took on, or continued, a life of their own, slipping in and out of oral tradition. The songs of the broadsides were variable, producing or preserving the very worst doggerel and the very best of songs. Most of the broadsides were discarded and lost. Disher says, without regret, that unknown numbers were pulped during the paper shortage caused by the First World War. A small number survived in private collections, either in their broadside form, or in more prestigious songbooks designed for the wealthy and produced by the same broadside printers. Some collectors of ballads, notably Professor Francis James Child, shunned the broadsides as worthless drivel. He said of collections of them, Child nonetheless includes in his collection, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, many broadside versions of traditional ballads. A few very lovely broadside ballads escaped his notice, among them Long A-growing.
Among the many British publishers of broadsides, James Catnach, in the area of London known as Seven Dials, stands out as one of the most interesting. He became a master of the lurid murder-ballad and other sordid or scandalous tales, stories that are now the domain of the tabloid press. He perfected the "goodnight ballad". These were supposedly the last words -- usually claimed to have been found on the floor of the cell -- of a condemned man, written on the night before his execution. They gave an account of his life from his innocent childhood to his fall into a sinful life, ending either with a plea for forgiveness, or a defiant and unrepentant farewell. By careful planning, these broadsides could be printed and ready for sale from the very foot of the gallows tree on the day of the hanging. And when I'm dead, going to my grave Get six pretty maidens to carry my pall. 
James Catnach along with other British printers, many of them also with addresses in the Seven Dials, produced the Billy Barlow broadsides that now reside at the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Many of them are the Billy Barlow song that begins: When I was born says old Mother Goose, The Catnach broadside of this Billy Barlow song has a picture of a Medieval jester at the top, probably just because the second verse is about Billy being labeled a fool when he goes to school, or maybe it's just a random choice of woodcut. Tantalizing though, when Billy Barlow -- or his direct ancestor -- could so easily have spent some time as a court fool. There is no date on this, or any of the broadsides, and all that can be said about its age is that Catnach began his printing business in 1813 and continued it until 1838. This same version of Billy Barlow was printed by other printers, but the earliest of all except one of these could not have been printed before 1840. The one copy of this version, for which the date is completely unknown, is by a printer called J. Kiernan of Manchester.
They are all pretty awful, but their value lies in the fact that they indicate that Billy Barlow was already a well-known character before 1830. If Birt printed the "Mother Goose" version of Billy Barlow, it has been lost or is in hiding. Catnach also printed Billy Barlow's Wedding Miseries. He illustrated it, for no reason that can be ascertained by reading the text, with a woodcut of a man in a field beating(?) a donkey. Billy Barlow's Brother was in The Highland Songster, published by J. Pitts of Seven Dials, sometime between 1819 and 1844. It is unremarkable except that Billy was popular enough to be given a brother. Teddy Barlow vanished quickly, it seems. The other Bodleian broadsides that are not of the "Mother Goose" type introduce Billy as an adult without mentioning his childhood. One, from an unknown printer, gives forty-five verses of actor Sam Cowell's Billy Barlow. It begins: ....Catherine Hayes (sang) Sonnambula so well [2] Catherine Hayes is known to have shared the stage with tenor John Simms Reeves on occasion. He sang Billy Barlow as part of his popular repertoire, raising the possibility that Catherine Hayes may have met Billy Barlow. She may also have met him several times when he was played by Sam Cowell, George Coppin and other contemporary singers. She most likely didn't sing the Billy Barlow song herself, more's the pity.
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