Broadside ballads entitled 'The Pardon Came Too Late', 'She was Bred in Old Kentucky', 'You Can't Put an Old Head on the Shoulders of a Child', and 'Just Like the Ivy, I'll Cling to You'

Commentary

The first ballad begins: 'A fair-haired boy in a foreign land at sunrise was to die ; / In a prison cell he sat alone, from his heart there came a sigh'. The second ballad begins: 'As a lad I stood one day by a cottage far away, / And to me that day all nature seemed more grand'. The third ballad reads: 'To spare the rod will spoil the child, I've often heard people / say'. The fourth ballad begins: 'Grand-dad sat at evenfall / 'Neath the dear old garden wall'.

Whilst the majority of ballads and songs were published anonymously, the author and composer of 'Just like the Ivy, I'll Cling to You' have both been included on this sheet. It was written and composed by A.J. Mills and Henry Castling, and famously sung by Marie Kendall.

The Dundee Poets? Box was in operation from about 1880 to 1945, though it is possible that some material was printed as early as the 1850s. Most of the time it had premises at various addresses in Overgate. In 1885 the proprietor J.G. Scott (at 182 Overgate) had published a catalogue of 2,000 titles consisting of included humorous recitations, dialogues, temperance songs, medleys, parodies, love songs, Jacobite songs. Another proprietor in the 1880s was William Shepherd, but little is known about him. Poets? Box was particularly busy on market days and feeing days when country folk were in town in large numbers. Macartney specialised in local songs and bothy ballads. Many Irish songs were published by the Poets? Box ? many Irishmen worked seasonally harvesting potatoes and also in the jute mills. In 1906 John Lowden Macartney took over as proprietor of the Poet?s Box, initially working from 181 Overgate and later from no.203 and 207.

It is not clear what the connection between the different Poet?s Boxes were. They almost certainly sold each other?s sheets. It is known that John Sanderson in Edinburgh often wrote to the Leitches in Glasgow for songs and that later his brother Charles obtained copies of songs from the Dundee Poet?s Box. There was also a Poet?s Box in Belfast from 1846 to 1856 at the address of the printer James Moore, and one at Paisley in the early 1850s, owned by William Anderson.

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