Annotation:Old Towler

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OLD TOWLER. AKA - "Old Towler." English, Scottish; March or Jig. D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. A song, "Old Jowler," also called "Old Towler" was originally said to have been composed by William Shield (1748-1829) who was Master of the King's Music in 1817. It was adopted as a military march by the 53rd Foot (Light Infantry) in 1881. The name Old Jowler has long been associated with canines, especially those breeds with jowls, like beagles. For example, Lydia Maria Child's (1802-1880) familiar elementary school song entitled "The New England Boy's Song about Thanksgiving Day" (better known to us as "Over the River and Through the Woods"), has the lines:

Over the river, and through the wood-
Old Jowler hears our bells;
He shakes his pow,
With a loud bow wow,
And thus the news he tells.

William Makepeace Thackery's burlesque The Tremendous Adventures of Major Gahagan, gives the name Jowler to the regimental Colonel of Major Goliah O'Grady Gahagan, presumably for the comic association. "Old Towler" was the regimental march of the King's Shropshire Light Infantry. The melody was in the repertoire of Gloucestershire fiddler Stephen Baldwin (1873-1955).

Source for notated version: the 1823-26 music mss of papermaker and musician Joshua Gibbons (1778-1871, of Tealby, near Market Rasen, Lincolnshire Wolds) [Sumner].

Printed sources: Aird (Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs, vol. 5), Glasgow, 1797; No. 24, p. 9. Colclough (Tutor for the Irish Union Pipes), c. 1830; p. 17. Kerr (Merry Melodies, vol. 3), c. 1880's; No. 400, p. 44. Laybourn (Köhler's Violin Repository, Book One), 1881, p. 63. O'Farrell (Pocket Companion, vol. III), c. 1808; p. 54. Sumner (Lincolnshire Collections, vol. 1: The Joshua Gibbons Manuscript), 1997; pp. 44-45 (appears as "Old Towler," set in the key of F major for two instruments).

Recorded sources:

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