Humphreys, George

Singer

Collection date: Sept 1914

Area: London

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George Humphreys at Marylebone workhouse: age 71, 1 folksong and 2 sea shanties ‘Haul in the bowline’ and ‘The Drunken Sailor’ (FT3050-52) on 10 Sept 1914: Sharp noted in FT3051 that Mr Humphreys was a Londoner who had emigrated to Brisbane when about 25 years old (c1868) and that he did various jobs out there such as a cuddy servant (i.e. waiter, galley slave) on board a coasting passenger boat. It was there and on the voyage to Rio that he learned his shanties.

Unfortunately there were two George Humphreys in the 1911 census for the Marylebone workhouse in Northumberland Street. There was on p29 a George Humphrey(s), age 67, married, a house painter born in Marylebone; and on p30 a George Humphries, 67, single, a hawker born in Shoreditch. The former is slight favourite to be Sharp's singer. He was in the same workhouse in the 1901 census and can be found in Marylebone in the 1891 census as a painter (RG12/103 f20 p34).