Quick, Miss

Singer

Collection date: Aug 1903

Area: Somerset - Langport surrounds

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Miss Quick of Drayton (1885-1935): age 18, 1 song 'Drayton Wassail' Aug 1903 (click vwml link above): The second song that Sharp collected in Somerset was the Drayton Wassail from a Miss Quick. She was one of the two daughters of the Rev Henry George Quick, vicar of Drayton nr Langport between 1893 and his death in April 1912. They were: Mary Quick (b18/4/1885, bp St James Bristol 29/5/1885) and Lucy Quick (bp 30/5/1888 St John Evangelist Clifton). In the 1901 census the two girls were being educated as boarders at a small establishment in Clifton, aged 15 and 12 (ref RG13/2367 f91 p2).

Lucy, the younger of the two (left in photo), was the first to be married - at Drayton church on 13/1/1910 to Rev George Milner Bell, when she was 21. She moved to Romford, Essex where Rev Bell was vicar between 1909-22. Lucy would only have been 15 when Sharp visited Drayton in 1903.

The more likely candidate is the older sister Mary (right in photo), who would have been 18 in 1903. Mary moved to Essex in 1911 and is shown as a music teacher aged 25 in the 1911 census (ref RG14/7442 schedule 90). Her musical expertise may have been just what was required to learn and perform the wassail song to Sharp. In 1913 Mary married Rev Stanley Mottram Rankin, who had recently returned from a clerical posting in Fort William Ontario and joined his mother Ellen Rankin at her home in Hatch End in Pinner Middlesex for a time. Stanley was 37 and Mary was 28. They had at least one child Richard b1916. Stanley died in 1933 in Farnborough Warwicks. Mary died 24/1/1935 at Worthen nr Shrewsbury.

The Drayton 'visiting wassail' is a long standing tradition in the village and is still performed annually on January 5th. https://draytonsomerset.co.uk/category/wassailing/