"The Lincolnshire Poacher" is a traditional English folk song associated with the county of Lincolnshire, and deals with the joys of poaching. It is considered to be the unofficial county anthem of Lincolnshire. It is catalogued as Roud Folk Song Index No. 299.
The earliest printed version appeared in York about 1776. In 1857 it was written; "This very old ditty has been transformed into the dialects of Somersetshire, Northumberland and Leicestershire, but it properly belongs to Lincolnshire." The song is said to have been a favourite of King George IV.[1]
"The Lincolnshire Poacher" was the regimental quick march of the 10th Regiment of Foot and its successors the Royal Lincolnshire Regiment and the 2nd Battalion Royal Anglian Regiment,[2] who are known as "the Poachers".[3] Also, it was the regimental march of the 2nd battalion The Loyal Regiment (North Lancashire). It is the principal musical theme of the quick march of the Intelligence Corps.[4] Prior to 1881 this Battalion had been the 81st Regiment of Foot (Loyal Lincoln Volunteers). It is also the authorised march of The Lincoln and Welland Regiment of the Canadian Forces.
The tune was used by many New York Regiments during the American Civil War as "The New York Volunteer".
It was also the marching song for the 20th Battalion, Australian Imperial Force, during the First World War.
When the Royal Air Force College Cranwell, the officer training school of the Royal Air Force, was formed in Lincolnshire in 1919, its first Commandant, Air Commodore C. A. H. Longcroft, sought permission from the then Regimental Colonel of the Lincolnshire Regiment to adopt the march as the quick march of the College.
Anglo-Catholic congregations in the Anglican communion sometimes use the tune as a setting for a hymn sung in procession that begins, "The Happy Birds Te Deum Sing, 'Tis Mary's Month of May."[5]
In 1961, Benjamin Britten arranged the song as no. 3 in Volume Five of British Folk Songs.[6] Frank Newman instrumented the song for four hands on piano. In 1978, the Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band issued "The Lincolnshire Poacher" as its follow-up single to their successful "The Floral Dance", and it was included on the 1978 album The Floral Dance.
The first two bars of the tune were used as an interval signal on the numbers station known as Lincolnshire Poacher.
Radio Lincolnshire used the melody from the end of the song's chorus as the signature tune for its news jingle when it commenced service in 1980 and in 1988 commissioned UK jingle company Alfasound to write a package of jingles based on the song.[7] Variations on this theme continued until early 2006, and today the station still uses a version with a less pronounced melody from the folk song.
The melody is used in Harold Baum's "The Glyoxylate Cycle" in The Biochemists' Songbook, and in the 1950 novelty song "The Thing", sung by Phil Harris, which was #1 in US charts in 1950.[8]
The melody was sung in the 1940 film Tom Brown's School Days by the Rugby students and is the theme song of the movie. It was also sung during a hall assembly in the 1951 version.
The melody is used, often with more Irish-themed instrumentation and singing, to create the off-colour folk song "The Chandler's Wife".
As is usual with folk songs, the lyrics differ slightly between sources, but the following are typical: