The Story

Johnny Higgerson was a jockey and innkeeper in the Hawkesbury region, including at Clarendon, Richmond. The image above, 'Plover' by Joseph Fowles, is reported to be of Higgerson upon the prizewinning horse. The song was composed and published in Bell’s Life. It was set to the air of ‘Ben Bolt’ and was a parody of it. It is evidence of the importance that sport and gambling, especially horseracing, had in the Hawkesbury in the mid-nineteenth century. It also illustrates the connection between written and oral song texts in this period: the song was written and published, but then circulated via mouth and informal (and overheard) social performances.

Alfred Smith wrote about singing the song himself, stating: 

Whenever I went up to "Bomera" all hands would want to know all the news from the Hawkesbury district. I always had to tell them all I knew by the fireside at night, and among us we had some songs and spent the nights pleasantly. One trip I made it fell to my lot to take a hand in the singing at "Bomera" camp fire, so I gave them "Higgerson's address to his horse”

Mr A Town and Mr C. Lawson were up there that night, and listening outside unbeknown to me. When I had finished the song they started clapping me for it, and shouted “Well done, Alf," I told them that if I had known they were outside listening they would have got no song from me. Anyhow we all enjoyed ourselves, and out in the back-blocks you get a good reception whether you are a good singer or not. I think I can remember the song, and will give it to you.

Smith’s recollections are very hazy on dates, but 'Ben Bolt' was originally published as a poem in America in 1843. ‘Higgerson’s Address to his Horse’ was published in Bell’s Life in 1857, so Smith must be talking about shortly after 1857. It shows the poem’s popularity that was well known enough by the 1850s to be parodied. It also demonstrates a strong ‘piss-taking’ streak in colonial culture, to take a sentimental, nostalgic song, and turn it into an ode to gambling.  What tune would Smith had sung it to? Perhaps the 1855 version by Rainer’s Minstrels, also known as ‘Rainer’s Serenader’s, an American minstrel group, who were very popular and toured Australia in 1853.

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Higgerson's Address to His Horse

Don't you remember Sweet Alice, Veno?

Sweet Alice, whose coat was so grey!

How she strained every nerve when she saw you ahead,

So gallantly leading the way!

In her stable at Melbourne she's resting, Veno

Fatigued with Weveart she has done;

The laurels she wore for many a day

By you have been triumphantly won

Don't you remember the course, Veno,

The crush of the visitors there?

The cheers of the thousands who saw

you approach

Fully three lengths ahead of the mare.

The grass now grows o'er the course, Veno;

The booths have been long taken down;

And of the vast crowd who assembled that day,

Some scores were immensely done brown.

Don't you remember the day, Veno.

You and I embarked for the trip?

The pleasant and glorious passage we had

For two or three days on the ship?

The vessel's been back to Melbourne, Veno;

She has made several trips to and fro,

But, of all the horses she o'er had on board,

She ne'er had one like you.

There is cash in the pockets of many, Veno,

Who had but little before;

And some thousands of pounds have been by you won,

And returned to your own native shore;

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You've astonished the cracks at Melbourne, Veno;

You have taken them all by surprise;

But I very well knew that the speed of my horse

Was as swift as the arrow that flies.

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Sources:

Alfred Smith, Some Ups and Downs of an Old Richmondite (Penrith: Nepean Family History Society Inc, 1991)

'Higgerson's Address to his Horse', Bell's Life, 17 October 1857, p. 3.