"D'YE KEN JOHN PEEL?"

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 278, 20 August 1919, Page 2

"D'YE KEN JOHN PEEL?"

Everybody knows the famous hunting song "D'YOiKcn John Peel?" which was published 50 years ago in a volu'mo called "The Songs and Ballads of Cumberland." It appears that the song was written by John Woodcock Graves, who went out to Tasmania in 1833. The authorship is now said to be finally established through several documents which are. to be sold by Messrs. Sot.]ieby inJune. These documents were the property of George Coward of Carlisle, who wrote under the name of Sydney Gilpin, and edited the volume referred to above. In the first letter written from liobart in 1865, Graves stated lhat ho wrote the song about 1828, and conferred tho copyright on George Coward., In the next letter to Coward, Graves sent a version of the song, as originally composed in dialect, staling tliat when ho wrote it' at Caldbaek, Cumberland, in the provincial language of that place, he never supposed that anything more would ba beard of it.

It seems that wMc Graves was sitting by the tiresidc. his daughter camo in to "ask what were the words of flic cong that her grandmother was singing. "Granny was singing to sleep mv eldest son," said Graves, "wttii a very old rant called 'Bonnie Annie.' The pen and ink for hunting appointments being on the table, the Idea oi* writing a sour to this old air forced itself upon me, and there was produced iraproniptn, *D'Ye Ken John Peel "Christian Science Monitor."