[Note 199.1] The illustration at the top of the broadside shows a locomotive very similar to the Rocket which was the most famous of the locomotives on the Liverpool and Manchester railway.

[Note 199.2] The Liverpool and Manchester railway was an immediate commercial success. In 1833 it carried 1100 passengers daily.

Reference:
Wolmar, Christian, Fire & Steam: A New History of the Railways in Britain (Atlantic Books, 2007)

[Note 199.3] A series of ascents were made from Salford by several balloonists between 1814  [i] and 1840 [ii] George Green, the most famous balloonist of the time, made several ascents in 1828 [iii]  and 1837 [iv] There was a series of Johnny Green songs one of which was Johnny Green's trip from Owdham to see a balloon ascent' [v]. In the introduction to that song, Harland suggests that it was prompted by Mr Sadler's ascent in 1824 [vi]

References:
[i] Manchester Mercury Tuesday 20 September 1814
[ii] Manchester Times Saturday 17 October 1840
[iii] Manchester Mercury Tuesday 05 August 1828
[iv] Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser Saturday 28 October 1837 and Manchester Times Saturday 11 November 1837 
[v] Harland, John, songs of the Wilsons (London, Whittaker & sons, 1865) pp49-52
[vi] Manchester Mercury Tuesday 27 April 1824 

[Note 199.4] Wellington's coach is seen in this famous illustration of the opening of the Liverpool & Manchester. The lines "They'll show it thee or any mon, An tell thee aw ist axes." Suggests that it was a tourist attraction.

[Note 199.5] Taxes may be a reference to Wellington's support for the continuation of the Corn Laws. The Duke's widespread unpopularity was demonstrated when he opened the Liverpool & Manchester Railway. Roy Palmer [i]  offers two accounts.

M. Sturge Gretton wrote "My grandfather who was…one of the guests of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway on the occasion of the running of their first passenger train, used to recount how the duke of Wellington, who was also a guest, became plastered with mud in his efforts to shield the ladies from the filth that the populace, ranged along the line, was flinging at the travellers.

A Miss Fanny Kemble wrote of tricolour flags, cries of 'No corn Laws', and hissing and booing. "The vast concourse of people who had assembled [in Manchester] to witness the arrival of the successful travellers, was of the lowest order of mechanic and artisans, among whom great distress and a dangerous spirit of discontent with the Government at that time prevailed. Groans and hisses greeted the carriage full of influential personages in which the Duke of Wellington sat….High above the grim and grimy crowd of smiling faces a loom had been erected at which sat a tattered, starved-looking waver, evidently set there as a protest against the triumph of machinery, and the gain and the glory which the wealthy Liverpool and Manchester men were likely to derive from it."

Reference:
[i] Palmer, Roy (Ed) A Touch on the Times: songs of Social Change 1770 to 1914 (London, Penguin Books, 1974) pp36-37

[Note 199.6] Half of the 26 stage coaches running between Liverpool and Manchester ceased operations within three months of the railway opening in June 1830.

Reference:
Wolmar, Christian, Fire & Steam: A New History of the Railways in Britain (Atlantic Books, 2007)

[Note 199.7] The Manchester Mercury of Tuesday 23 November 1830 reported "that two different companies had been formed for the purpose of making railway from Oldham to Manchester," one as early as 1825. The Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser reported progress (or lack of it) throughout the 1830s [i] But Johnny Green and his friends had to wait until 1842 for the opening of the rail link to Oldham [ii]

References:
[i] The Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser 23rd September 1837, 24th February 1838,  22nd September 1838
[ii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldham_Loop_Line

[Note 199.8] The end of the French Wars in 1815 was followed by several decades of social unrest exacerbated by the Peterloo Massacre of 1819 and the introduction of the Corn Laws. The Anti Corn-Law League¹ was very active in the Manchester area during the 1830s and it was an important recruiting area for the Chartists¹

[Note 545.1] George III reigned 1760-1820.

[Note 545.2] Stevenson could be Robert (1772-1850) but is probably his father George (1781-1848) the engineer sometimes called "Father of the Railways"

[Note 545.3] This is probably an allusion to the Night Poaching Act of 1828 by which poachers were sentences to transportation across the seas. and Game Act 1831, established a close season when birds could not be taken legally.[i] The poet is romanticising the past when he says that 'A poor man could shoot a hare, Or bird upon the wing. And not be shot by a gamekeepers'. The Black Act of 1723 included clauses intended to deter poaching by threat of transportation or even death. [ii] and was in force when George III was king.

References:

[i] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_law
[ii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Act_1723

Glossary

Garrotters: Street robbers who stole from people in the street using actual or threatened violence. Garrotte robbery was initially used to describe a particular form of violence used but Garrotter came to be applied to any street robber. [i] The first newspaper references to Garrotters appeared in 1856 [ii] and the Norfolk News of 27th December 1856 printed a description of an anti-garrotting device. There was a second garrotting panic in 1862 which resulted in the Garrotters Act of 1863 [iii]

[i] Sindall, R. The London garrotting panics of 1856 and 1862, Social History Vol. 12, No. 3 (Oct., 1987), pp. 351-359
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4285629?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
[ii] Morning Post (London) 11 November 1856
[iii] Sindall, ibid

[Note 549.1] The song dates from the hungry forties. According to A.N. Wilson [i] "1837-44 brought the worst economic depression that had ever afflicted the British people.

Reference:
[i] Wilson, A. N. The Victorians (London, Huthcinson, 2002)

[Note 549.2] The press gang was last officially used during the Napoleonic Wars between 1803-1815. However, the right to use impressment was retained. The need for impressment really died out in the 1850s when continuous service was introduced for sailors wanting to make the navy their career.
http://www.royalnavalmuseum.org/visit_see_sailfaq.htm

[Note 549.3] The Illustrated London News of 21 December 1844 said of the emigrants :
"The chief portion are cottagers, most of whom have never received parish relief - families struggling with numerous difficulties to gain a precarious livelihood, and enduring sever privations and hardships in the inclement season of winter; and some few are persons who have been better off in the world, but, reduced by unforeseen events, are desirous of speculating with their little remnabt of property, under a hope of retrieving their circumstances, and amongst these may be found individuals whose wounded pride cannot bear the thoughts of their old associates and friends witnessing their poverty"

The Government established the Colonial Land and Emigration Commission in 1840 to provide information and sometimes financial help to would-bi emigrants.

References:
Quoted by Brown, Kevin. Passage to the World: the Emigrant Experience 1807-1940 (Barnsley, Seaforth Publishing, 2013) p5

[Note 549.4] Workhouses were built in the late 1830 and into the 1840s (when this song was written). It is likely that the economic slump during the "hungry 40's" resulted in increased numbers of destitute people entering the workhouse but no figures have been found to support the assumption. The line "hundreds now that can't get in, do starve outside the door" may be inspired by the sight of people seeking the shelter of the Casual Wards. Bruce Rosen wrote that[i] The Poor Law Commissioners recommended that this" [casual wards] "should be provided as short term shelter (usually for a single night) and a meal in return for work…Those who sought such short term accommodation were separated from the longer term residents of the workhouse confined to the "casual" wards. According to Norman Longmate, the 'standard policy' which was developed to deal with such short term applicants was 'to make the vagrant's life so disagreeable that he would hesitate to come back.'
…
After queuing, sometimes for hours, and if there was space available, a casual might be admitted through the single entrance near which were the casual wards. A casual ward might consist of a large room with some bedding and a bucket for sanitation. The bedding was often nothing but straw, with rags for coverings as in the Richmond workhouse in the 1840s. In return for this largesse, the occupant was required to do a set amount of work before leaving on the following day. Often this work was soul-destroying. Men might have to spend hours breaking stones while women were set to picking oakum."

A.N. Wilson [ii] has written "It is estimated - and we are speaking her of the years before he Irish potato famine - that more than a million paupers starved from simple lack of employment"

Refernces:

[i] Rosen, Bruce The Victorian Casual Ward, Victorian History website http://vichist.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-victorian-casual-ward.html
[ii] Wilson, A. N. The Victorians (London, Huthcinson, 2002)

[Note 549.5] The stage waggons used by poorer folk moved at walking pace and were much slower than the stage coaches used by the better off.

Roy Palmer says that "The stage wagons had a particular place in the affections of country people." [i] and quotes E. W. Bovill:
"When the poor had to travel they used the old-fashioned stage wagons, drawn by four, six, or even eight horses, which were chiefly used for the carriage of goods. They never moved out of a walk and were in charge of a carter who usually walked beside his team." [ii]
The date of the songs suggests that the line "For they travel on hot water, and they melt long miles by steam" refers to railways rather than steam coaches.

[Note 549.6] The Thames Tunnel, from Wapping to Rotherhithe was the first tunnel under a river anywhere in the world. tunnel was opened in 1843. It was of an horseshoe construction with a height of 7m/23ft and width of 11m/37ft. It had a total length of 406m/1,506ft. In the first four months more than a million people passed through the long awaited tunnel. [i]

At least two songs were written about the tunnel [ii]. This is from the cover of one of them.

picture

References:

[i] http://www.ikbrunel.org.uk/thames-tunnel
[ii] The Thames tunnel written and composed by J. A. Hoy ; arranged by F. Lancelott. British Library Shelfmark Music Collections H.1756.(46.) and
The Thames Tunnel. A very popular comic song. Written by Mr. James Bruton .with an accompaniment for the piano forte by J. T. Craven. British Library Shelfmark Music Collections H.1652.v.(6.)

[Note 549.7] The Royal Humane Society was founded in London in 1774 by two eminent medical men, William Hawes and Thomas Cogan, who were keen to promote techniques of resuscitation. It became apparent that people were putting their own lives in danger rescuing others and awards were given in recognition of these acts of bravery. This remains the purpose of the society today

Reference:

http://www.royalhumanesociety.org.uk/

[Note 509.1] "In 1790 Mr. Robert Grimshaw" [1757-1799], "of Gorton House, Gorton, near Manchester (having contracted with the Rev. Dr. Cartwright, the inventor of the power-loom, for the privilege of using 500 of his looms), erected, for their reception, a weaving factory at Knott Mill, with steam-power. The mill was finished, and the machinery, including 30 power-looms,"

"Dr Cartwright had erected a mill for power-looms at Doncaster but with so little success that it was abandoned"

Reference:

John Harland and T.T. Wilkinson, Ballads and Songs of Lancashire, Second Edition (London, George Routledge and Sons, 1875)
P202-203

Rev. Dr. Cartwright, Edmund Cartwright 1743-1823 patented power loom designs in 1785 and 1789.

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Cartwright [accessed 21May2019]

Knott Mill, Manchester M15 4PS near the current Deansgate (formerly Knott Mill) railway station.

[Note 509.2] The mill was destroyed by fire in 1792 [i]
As the proprietor had previously received several anonymous letters threatening destruction to the mill if he persisted to work it, there is every reason to conclude that the fire did not happen without design, but was the work of an incendiary. Mr. Grimshaw was about erecting another mill in Gorton, but this fire not only deterred him, but others, from bringing the invention into use; and the next attempt to introduce power-looms into Manchester was not made till sixteen years afterwards. [ii]

References:

[i] Grimshaw Origins and History http://grimshaworigin.org/grimshaw-involvement-in-the-industrial-revolution/robert-grimshaw-builder-of-loom/ [accessed 21May2109]

[ii] John Harland and T.T. Wilkinson, Ballads and Songs of Lancashire, Second Edition (London, George Routledge and Sons, 1875)
P202

[Note 509.3] Robert and his brother John went into bankruptcy, perhaps as a result of the destruction of the mill, and Robert took his own life in 1799 while in debtors' prison in London.

Reference

Grimshaw Origins and History http://grimshaworigin.org/grimshaw-involvement-in-the-industrial-revolution/robert-grimshaw-builder-of-loom/ [accessed 21May2109]