Hamlet, Rev Joseph

Singer

Collection date: Sept 1903

Area: Somerset - Hambridge surrounds

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Rev Joseph Hamlet of Barrington (1857-1926): age 46, 1 song (‘Barrington Wassail’ FT36) Sept 1903: this tuneful ‘visiting wassail’ song is quite different from the 'Drayton Wassail' song that Sharp had collected that August from Miss Quick. Unsurprisingly Sharp got an almost identical version to Hamlet’s song from Jim Woodland at Stocklinch three months later at Xmas - Stocklinch is just half a mile away from Barrington.

Rev Hamlet may have been responsible for bringing up the Barrington fiddlers and wassailers to meet Sharp & Marson in Dec 1903. He was a similar age to Marson (b 1857) and also of High Church persuasion. He had been vicar of Barrington since 1885. Although he had stayed for many years at the Rectory in Shepton Beauchamp, in the 1911 census he is found living on his own with no servants in a house in Barrington (RG14/14341 schedule 90). He died on 23 July 1926.