Extra Information
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"It lay for some years on the publisher's shelves neglected, until, at the time of Queen Victoria's Jubilee, Miss Agnes Sibley, the head of a ladies' school in the West of England, wrote an extra verse referring to the Queen, and asked whether her pupils might sing it. The publishers agreed to include the extra verse in the song, and then Clara Butt took it up, meeting with a tremendous reception the first time she sang it at Belfast. From that moment the song leapt into popularity." (from Harold Simpson: 'A century of ballads, 1810-1910; their composers and singers', 1910).
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