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THE COPPER FAMILY'S FOLK DYNASTY

The Copper Family at St Mary Magdalene Church, Rusper (©AAH/Alan Wright)

Published on 1st October 2024

The Copper Family performed at the Church of St Mary Magdalene, Rusper, on Saturday 14 September. Here, with background material supplied by cultural historian Simon Machin, we delve into the Copper Family’s folk heritage and discover why Rusper was the perfect setting for their traditional tunes…

THE COPPERS

The earliest mention of the Coppers comes from Rottingdean in 1593, although in all likelihood, the family lived in or close to the Sussex coastal village long before then. Most of the family worked as farm labourers or shepherds, although James ‘Brasser’ Copper (born 1845) and his son Jim (b.1882) were farm bailiffs or managers. 

Singing seems to have run in the blood and the Coppers were renowned in Rustington. But it wasn’t until the late 19th century that they attracted the attention of folk collectors, who travelled around the country ‘collecting’ traditional songs. Some of these have endured, perhaps most notably Scarborough Fair, which was first published in 1891 and is believed to have originated in Whitby. 

In November 1898, Kate Lee, a professional concert singer and a keen collector of folk songs, was staying at the Rottingdean home of Edward Carson, a distinguished politician and lawyer. It was here that Kate heard about the talented family of folk singers who tilled the local fields. Kate spent three successive evenings with James ‘Brasser’ Copper and his brother, Tom. Their whistles wetted by a copious supply of whisky, the brothers shared their archive of family songs, passed down through the generations. 

 While introducing The Brisk Young Ploughboy at Rusper, John Copper, the oldest member of the family still performing, said: ‘Many of the songs were about the toils of manual labour. In those days, it wasn’t uncommon for boys aged 11 or 12 to plough all day, working a relatively small piece of land. Singing was a way of getting through the day, so the songs survived.’ 

Kate Lee collected 50 songs in all from the Coppers and these became the foundation stone upon which The Folk Song Society (later the English Folk Dance and Song Society) was formed, with ‘Brasser’ and Tom made honorary members. Claudy Banks, based on the Copper rendition, featured in the first edition of the Journal of the Folk Song Society.

The songs were passed down and kept alive in the village throughout the 1920s and ‘30s by Jim Copper and his brother John, but these were lean years in which folk attracted little interest. Post-war, Jim’s son Bob and his cousin Ron took on the mantle and largely through Bob’s diligence and writings, the songs survived into the modern era. 

It was only after the Second World War that the Coppers attained wider recognition. Jim (pictured opposite, with a tankard and pipe) heard one of their family songs on BBC Radio in 1950 and wrote in to say that he and his family still performed them. A BBC producer visited the family and managed to re-collect some 40 songs. This time, the medium of radio ensured that the songs would never be forgotten. The Copper family were soon performing from the garden of a pub in an outside broadcast to an audience of 13 million. 

A radio series, The Life of Jim Copper, followed, as did a concert at the Royal Albert Hall. They were recognised then as folk royalty and have remained so ever since. The icing on the cake was the featuring of Claudy Banks in musical notation on the top of a sponge at an event at Cecil Sharp House, celebrating English folk song (Sharp was among England’s leading folk song collectors). The composer Ralph Vaughan Williams pointed this out to Bob Copper, who would have otherwise been none the wiser, as he could not read music. 

Simon Machin helped organise the concert (©AAH/Alan Wright)

AMERICAN DREAM

With the folk revival inspiring interest across the world, The Copper Family were in demand stateside too. Before singing one of the family’s most enduring songs, Spencer the Rover, Bob’s daughter Jill told the Rusper audience: ‘Dad travelled on an aeroplane for the first time at the age of 79, when we performed in America in 1994. Our first gig was at the Library of Congress in Washington DC. It transpired that many people in the audience had a copy of Bob’s book, A Song For Every Season, first published in 1973, and they queued up afterwards for his autograph. We enjoyed many trips to America and on one occasion attended the Folk International Alliance annual conference in Memphis. We were in a bar when a gentleman who had been hanging around finally put his hand on Bob’s shoulder and said, “I feel I’m standing in the presence of greatness!” Bob didn’t know what to say, but the rest of us jokingly referred to him as “His Greatness” for the rest of the trip!’

In 2002, Bob was interviewed alongside the great American folk singer Pete Seegar. Bob died two years later, but the Copper Family continues to be represented by his son John, daughter Jill, son-in-law Jon Dudley and their respective children, Mark, Andy, Sean, Ben, Lucy and Tom. All of them except Mark and Tom performed at Rusper, a concert held in aid of the Parish Church and supported by arts non-profit organisation Separate Star, which was founded by Simon Machin of Horsham.  

Recently, Bob’s great-grandson Flinn has joined the line-up, becoming the eighth consecutive known generation of The Copper Family to sing. Jill said: ‘There are 10 grandchildren in all and four are very keen to perform. At the Cambridge Folk Festival, there were three generations of the family singing together and the youngest members were given a wonderful reception by the audience. They are all leading their own lives so can’t always join us, but it’s wonderful that they are interested in the family’s heritage and it means a lot to us that these songs will be passed on to another generation.’

Reverend Nick Flint, Rector of Rusper Church (©AAH/Alan Wright)

THE BROADWOODS

St Mary Magdalene was a fitting choice for the concert, given that Rusper has played its own part in the history of English folk music. Reverend Nick Flint, rector since 1996, has traced his own Sussex ancestry back to the 1600s and found he was related to previous rectors of Rusper. He has also unearthed a connection to the famous Broadwood family of piano makers, who rebuilt St Mary Magdalene in the Victorian period. Nick shares common ancestry with Charlotte King, who in 1825 married the Rev John Broadwood, whose favourite hobby leads us back to the Coppers and folk song...

In 1847, John Broadwood published anonymously Old English Songs, which contained 16 folk songs “set to music exactly as they are now sung”.  He is recognised as the first collector to accurately record the dialect and music of country people.  

Following his death, his niece, Lucy Etheldred Broadwood, moved with her family into his former home, Lyne House in Capel. Inspired by her uncle, Lucy reprinted his work as Sussex Songs in 1889, adding 10 from her own collection. In the process, she made song collecting a respectable pursuit for women, as well as men. 

During the Edwardian period, songs of the countryside found their way into the music of leading composers such as Ralph Vaughan Williams. Ralph even composed at a Broadwood piano that he had bought from the family, and this remains on display at the National Trust’s Leith Hill Place. Today, memorials to the Broadwood family are built into the fabric of Sussex churches, including St John the Baptist in Crawley and of course, St Mary Magdalene in Rusper. Horsham’s Morris dancing side is named after Lucy Broadwood and every year on May Day, Broadwood Morris visit the church to lay a wreath at her memorial tablet. 

With their performance at the church in September, The Copper Family truly brought the history of folk song in Sussex full circle.  

WORDS: Ben Morris & Simon Machin

PHOTOS: Alan Wrigh

Further information:

Many thanks to cultural and oral historian Simon Machin, who helped organise The Copper Family concert in Rusper and provided much of the information in this article. Simon further discusses the social history of folk in his podcast, Red Heaven, available at www.redheavenproject.com