‘Wrongs and Rights’ by ‘W. C.’
Burnley Free Press and General Advertiser January 25th 1862
The poem which this song is derived from is distinctive in several ways. Firstly, its lines are quite long and are composed broadly in the ‘dactylic’ meter – a three-beat metric foot that sounds almost like a waltz. But what is perhaps more unusual is the political anger expressed in this text. Its themes are oppression, tyranny, poverty, and exploitation, and the fact that it was published in a cotton mill town, Burnley, near the beginning of the Cotton Famine is extremely significant. Although the event of the economic ‘Distress’ is not directly referred to, the idea that the ‘master’ might ‘snatch’ the ‘hard-earned bread of toil’ is a characterisation that cannot help but be politically provocative at a time when mills are beginning to close and unemployment is bringing real hunger to the region. In several ways, this text resembles the revolutionary and reformist poetry of the Chartist generation of the 1840s. Calls for action against the ‘tyrants’ like those in the last two verses represent very rare sentiments for poetry published in newspapers during the 1860s. Saul Rose was particularly drawn to this text because he recognised that it expressed such a different attitude to the political situation than that represented by the majority of poetry from the region. It is certainly true that, as the example of ‘Food or Work’ (‘Cotton Lords’) illustrates, we can never really know the extent of political anger in the region, partly because where it emerged, it was usually suppressed.
Another unknown is whether this poem was written by a member of the working classes. As with so many newspaper poems from the time, all we have is the initials, in this case ‘W. C.’ There was another poem entitled ‘The Mill-hand’s Petition’ by a ‘W. C.’, which was published in 1861 and referred directly to the Famine and its causes. There is also the Burnley dialect poet ‘Williffe Cunliam’ (real name William Cunliffe), who published in the same newspaper from 1862. However, Cunliam’s poetry tended to be politically conservative, or at least not radical. It is still possible that they are one and the same poet. Perhaps Cunliam used different pen-names for different poetic tones. If this were the case then this is a genuine working-class radical poem from the Cotton Famine – William Cunliffe was a blacksmith.
lyrics
Wrongs and Rights
(words: W. C. music: Saul Rose)
Oh shame on the man be him caitiff or lord
Who would have the borne Freeman to cringe at his word
And a man would degrade to a tool and a slave
To strut like a lordling would stoop to be knave
Oh shame on the man though master he be
Who would steal from a workman his own liberty
Who would snatch from his mouth the bread of his toil
To starve out his conscience on free English soil
Who’d compel him, a wanderer, houseless to roam
Down trample his rights or drive him from home
Who would give for his birthright a portion of ale
Oh tell the insulting, the soul stirring tale
Aye point at him, mark him well, pass round his name
Dishonoured to sink with his deep branded shame
Til he sneaks like a felon condemned through the streets
To be scornfully sneered at by each one meets
Englishmen up, from your lethargy rouse
The dearly bought rights of your freedom espouse
Though betrayed and defeated by tyrant’s foul plot
Let your wrongs not be sneered at or lightly forgot
Let the shouts of the freemen be borne on the gale
Til the proud tyrants tremble, their craven hearts quail
And rally for freedom with the cry ‘Do us right ‘
Our watchword and motto, on, on to the fight
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