[Note 153.1] "Hetton Main coal now is won" - Pigot's 1834 Directory of County Durham says..."The population of Hetton some thirteen years ago amounted to about 500 persons, at which period a colliery was commenced by the late Hon. Captain Cochrane, R.N. and Partners, which has so much increased in value in late years, that it is estimated that there are nearly 8,000 persons chiefly dependant upon it. [ref: http://www.dmm.org.uk/colliery/h027.htm]

[Note 153.2] "The water is hot":- implies the water in the mine was hot. More research is needed.

glossary :  "But we'll tub her beck without a flaw" :- A tub is a small truck into which the cut coal is filled. It was also used as a verb meaning to transport in tubs; which seems to be the meaning here. No usage of the word "beck" has been found that makes sense in the context of the song. "Flaw" probably means defect.

glossary :  "Hutton's coal it bangs them a'":- Beats them all

[Note 153.3] "Our master Cockrine he comes te" - Probably Hon. Captain Cochrane, R.N. who, with partners, established the mine.

[Note 153.4] "Jowsey he comes swearing in":- Probably a member of the mine-owning Joicey family http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Joicey,_1st_Baron_Joicey

[Note 153.5] "Hopper and Stephenson did say":- Hopper is unidentified. (The north east of England is an area in which the surname Hopper is concentrated). Stephenson is almost certainly George Stephenson (1781-1848). Roy Lambeth, Chairman Durham Mining Museum says that George Stephenson designed and engineered the Hetton Colliery Railway in 1819 and initially provided three new steam locomotives to work there in 1822.

[Note 153.6] "make nae sma'":- Do not hew any small lumps; small coal being of less value.

[Note 153.7] The waggon way and a' is done":- The Hetton colliery railway was opened in 1822 by the Hetton Coal Company at Hetton Lyons, County Durham. It was the first to be designed from the start to be without animal power, and was George Stephenson's first entirely new line. Below "View of the Railway from Hetton Colliery to the Depôt on the banks of the river Wear near Sunderland in the County of Durham, with the Loco-Motive and other engines used on the same."  (c1820 British Library System number 001672374)

[Note 153.8] "The coals are shipping every day":- Pigot's 1834 Directory of County Durham says "The coals are got at a depth of from 150 to 350 yards, and are let down a railway seven miles in length, and shipped on the banks of the River Wear near Sunderland, where the company have extensive wharfs for the shipping and landing goods, and where vessels of large burden can ride in safety". [ref: http://www.dmm.org.uk/colliery/h027.htm] Below is part of a 1904 map of Lambton railways showing the course of Hetton Railway  [ref: ttp://www.searlecanada.org/sunderland/sunderland009.html]

glossary ;  "Amang them a' they bear the sway":- Bears the sway means overshadows all others; The phrase also occurs in bar624~Steam Coach.

[Note 153.9] "Nesham's colliery and Lord Steward's te":- Nesham is probably John Nesham who owned collieries at Houghton le Spring. Sold to Lord Durham in 1818.
 http://www.houghtonlespring.org.uk/houghtoncolliery/houghton_colliery_timeline.htm. Lord Steward is probably Lord Charles Stewart who married Lady Frances Anne Vane Tempest, a coal heiress whose pits were in the Penshaw and Rainton districts of County Durham. http://www.durhamrecordsonline.com/literature/dawdon.php. The Vane family are also mention in bar422~Stockton Bridge.

[Note 153.10] "Of these few lines which Jowsey pen'd":- implies that a member of the Joswey/Joicey family wrote the song and the use of the French phrase a' la suggests an educated writer. However Jowsey/Joicey is a common name in the North-East (http://jowsey.com/ ) so it may not have been a member of the mine owning family.

[Note 263.1] The native home referred to in the song is probably Ireland. Many Irish men came to Scotland by way of the steamer services from Belfast to Greenock.

[Note 263.2] By 1841 a railway station at Bishopton had opened and many Irish navvies who had come to Scotland to work on the Glasgow to Ayr line decide to stay in the area .

Reference: http://wikimapia.org/2362731/Bishopton

[Note 263.3] Navvies were much fitter and stronger than the generality of men. That together with any tools of the trade that the hero might have been carrying would have marked him out as a navvy. Additionally the ganger may have known him from previous contracts.

[Note 263.4] The 1851 census in Knaresborough coincided with railway construction in the area. It records a that farm labourer's cottage occupied by couple and their 4 children, was also home to 19 navvies and their dependants including 4 married couples and three children. It was common for 4 or 5 people to share the typical 10 foot square bedroom. Some families tried to make arrangements for men to sleep in one cottage and women in another but this was not always possible.

Reference: Hylton, Stuart. The Grand Experiment : The Birth of the Railway Age 1820-1845 (Hersham, Ian Allen, 2007)

[Note 263.5] Declining employment in the countryside and overcrowded cottages forced young women to leave home in order to seek work. A well-paid navvy dressed his Sunday best silk neckerchief, fancy waistcoat and moleskin breeches might seem an attractive proposition. In the words of one congregational minister quoted by the railway historian Frederick Williams

"The navvies, bare-throated, their massive torsos covered but by the shirt, their strong lissom loins lightly girt, and their massive muscles showing out on their shapely legs through the tight, breeches, are the perfection of animal vigour. Finer men I never saw, and never hope to see" [i]

Domestic service was by far the largest employer of women throughout the 19th century. To escape a life of poorly paid drudgery a young women might well accept the risk of going on the tramp with a navvy.

[i] Williams, F. S. Our iron Roads (London, Ingram Cooke & Co, 1852)

[Note 263.6] In fact navvies were very well paid. They could often earn twice as much as agricultural labourers. In 1845 harvesters earned 22 pence per day; navvies earned 45 pence for a 9 hour day

Reference: Cowley, Ultan. The Men Who Built Britain: A History of the Irish Navvy (Wolfhound, Dublin, 2001)

[Note 263.7] The last two verses on the song are variants on common tropes

[Note 456.1] The first London underground line; the Metropolitan line, opened in 1863. This lithograph shows the line near Paddington in that year. The reality would surely have been more filled with smoke.

[Note 456.2] "bussing is nowadays terribly slow" - The congestion in the streets of London was an important spur to the construction of the undergound

[Note 456.3] "steam through a tunnel, black as a funnel" - The use of steam locomotives resulted in tunnels full of filthy smoke-filled air. 

[Note 456.4] "And crowding for tickets was work precious hot" - The underground was crowded right from the outset.

[Note 655.1] In 1830, a Liverpool merchant, James Atherton, purchased much of the land at Rock Point, which enjoyed views out to sea and across the Mersey and had a good beach. His aim was to develop it as a desirable residential and watering place for the gentry, in a similar way to Brighton, one of the most elegant seaside resorts of that Regency period - hence "New Brighton". [Ref http://www.visitnewbrighton.com/history]

[Note 655.2] Atherton's ambition to establish a resort for the gentry seems to have been undermined almost immediately. The general tenor of the song suggesting that people went to get drunk and seek sexual encounters.

[Note 655.3] The picture of New Brighton by was painted in 18

The first pier (shown at the left of the picture, was constructed of timber and a small "run-out" section was added later. During ebb-tides the ferry boat, as it left the stage, would haul the stage out, to enable the next boat to use the birth. [Ref: http://www.merseyside.net/newbrighton/Pages/NBferries.htm]

[Note 655.4] Kiss-in-the Ring is an open-air game played by young people of both sexes, who stand in a ring with hands joined, except one who runs round outside the ring and touches (or drops a handkerchief behind) one of the opposite sex, who thereupon leaves the ring and runs after the first, kissing him or her when caught. [OED]

[Note 655.5] The British Library holds at least five scores of Pop Goes the Weasel printed around 1855 which suggests it was in vogue during this period.

Pop goes the weasel, can traced back to the mid-nineteenth century 1853, in the UK children have played pop goes the weasel since 1890 it’s a London song game.

The children form several rings, in each ring one child stands he or she is the weasel the children dance round and sing the song, as the last line is reached (Pop goes the weasel) all the children rush to a new ring, the last child to join the ring is eliminated, until only one child is left. Pop goes the weasel.
https://history.knoji.com/pop-goes-the-weasel-and-other-playground-singing-games/

[Note 655.6] "The hurdy-gurdys they will come". The Hurdy-gurdy was played by many street musicians during the mid-19th century. The Picture below is taken from Mayhew's London Life and the London Poor published in but based on research done during the 1840s.

A musical instrument resembling the lute or guitar, and having strings (two or more of which are tuned so as to produce a drone), which are sounded by the revolution of a rosined wheel turned by the left hand, the notes of the melody being obtained by the action of keys which ‘stop’ the strings and are played by the right hand; thus combining the characteristics of instruments of the bowed and the clavier kinds. {OED]

[Note 655.7] "Young chaps will try to do the grand". The will try to give the impression that they are a person of wealth or high social position [based on OED]

[Note 655.8] Donkey rides were a popular seaside diversion from the beginning of the century.

[Note 655.9] "Will have to go to the Golden Balls" Three gold balls are the sign of a pawn-shop

shift(1) The name given to a chemise in the Gerogain and early regency period (i). A long shirt or shirt-like undergarment worn (esp. by women) for warmth and to protect clothing from sweat; a shift, a smock. [OED]
(i) http://robindelany.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/daily-life-1770-1830-undergarments.html

Cutaway view of a crinoline, Punch magazine, August 1856