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Millicen's Favourite Hornpipe, Tune from Thomas Hampton's Manuscript

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Alternative title: Millicent's Hornpipe, The Sweep Hornpipe, The Belfast Hornpipe

Source: Thomas Hampton's manuscript
Performer: Hampton, Thomas
Place Collected: Hereford
Date collected: c1870-1880

Thomas Hampton was born at Blaisdon in Gloucestershire (baptised March 1844), and probably worked on the canals for a while. By 1870 he was living in Hereford, being married there that year. He died in 1896, still resident at Bath St. Hereford. He left a manuscript containing tunes, which is now in the possession of his great-great granddaughter, Becky Dellow, who is researching both TH and the tunes. Although the manuscript was compiled in Hereford, Becky believes some of the tunes were remembered from TH’s childhood in Gloucestershire.

Millicen’s Hornpipe, (Usually known as “Millicent’s”) and the preceding Bristol Hornpipe are almost identical to the same tunes in Kerr’s Merry Melodies Vol 1, where they are adjacent on p. 44. They differ in the last bar of Millicen’s, which is the same as the last bar of the Bristol. If Kerr was Hampton’s source, this could be due to an error in transcription. Since the two tunes are in different keys, the ending sounds quite wrong.
The tune is known by a number of names, amongst them the Sweep’s and the Belfast Hornpipes. It is the same tune as Old Whake’s Hornpipe in Chris Beaumont’s manuscript.
note by Charles Menteith, with information from Becky Dellow

In the linked abc file this is tune number X:46