Features
Elizabeth Duckenfield
It Hails, It Rains
It hails, it rains, it snows and blows,
And I am wet through all me clothes.
So I pray thee love, let me in,
So I pray thee love let me in.
To let you in, that cannot be,
There's no-one in this house but me.
So I dare not let you in
Me dad and mam, they're fast asleep,
Me brother is up, but he's with the sheep.
So I dare not let thee in
He turned him round, and whether to go,
When sweet affections she did show.
Oh come, and I'll let you in
They spent that night in sweet content,
And the very next morning to church they went.
And he made her his charming bride
Elizabeth Duckenfield, daughter of John and Martha Duckenfield was born in January, 1852 at Treeton. Her brother Robert became a well known butcher in Treeton.
According to the 1871 census, Elizabeth Duckinfield, aged 19 lived with the Parramore family at 7 Lower Bole Hill and was employed as a servant.
She was not noted in the census of 1881, but in 1891 she was employed as a Domestic Cook by Lady Anna Cooke , widow of Sir Fothergill Cooke, at 67 Front Street, Treeton.
By 1901 Elizabeth was at 217 Lower Bole Hill, the home of her younger sister, Mary Warburton, a widow aged 43. It is noted that her former employer Lady Cooke had died in 1891.
Eliza Duckenfield was the Gatty's cook at Hooton Roberts Rectory
I understand that a song entitled It Hails, It Rains was collected locally from Miss Duckenfield by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) , the composer and folk song collector. I presume she met him while he was staying at The Rectory.
Vaughan Williams had been attracted to English folk-song while growing up, but little was then known about it. Around 1902 his interest began to intensify. In 1904 he realised English folk songs, were fast becoming extinct owing to the increase of literacy and printed music in rural areas. He collected many himself and edited them. He also incorporated some into his music, being fascinated by the beauty of the music and its anonymous history in the working lives of ordinary people.
It was in December 1903 he collected his first folk-song, Bushes and Briars, from a Mr Pottiphar at Ingrave, Essex. He went on to collect more than 800 songs, mostly in Essex, Sussex, and Norfolk, and the majority in the years before 1910.
See the feature about the Gatty's of Ecclesfield and Hooton Roberts Rectory