The board at Burrawang shed, near Forbes
An informative article in The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser of 5 August 1899 gives a detailed description of the culture of the shearing shed towards the end of the nineteenth century. As well as describing work practices, attitudes and shearing history (all of it, no doubt true), the author (‘Milroy’) gives an insight into the shearers’ varied song repertoire, and their performance style. He says that in all the sheds:
‘there was sure to be a goodly sprinkling of singers or alleged singers. There were singers of "comic" songs, singers of songs relating doughty deeds performed by an intrepid party known to all and sundry as " the wild colonial boy," singers of songs composed in the days of the convict system by men who suffered under it, singers of the pleasures of a sailors life, singers of songs that touched upon cattle-hunting and shearing, singers of songs about Ireland's wrongs, and singers of pathetic ballads, such as the "Sailor's Grave" or "The Anchor's Weighed." Hard as the comic song is to bear, it is joy itself when compared with "The Sailor's Grave," sung by a strong, rough-throated person, who first looks at the roof and then shuts his eyes, places his light [right]hand on his stomach, his left thumb in his left pocket, and sings, finishing every line with an unctuous sort of grunt, which is considered the best form in every shearing shed from Wentworth to Welltown.
Milroy also noted that ‘The late Ned Kelly is regarded as a great hero by eight-tenths of shearers, and anybody that knew that mailed marauder could always command the respect of the greater majority in any shed’.
The full article is here https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/163688205/16785244#
RW and GS
