JISCMail - RUDYARD-KIPLING Archives

On 30 January 1912, Jack Judge ( a native of Oldbury, Birmingham, Worcestershire, England) was performing at "The Grand" theatre, Stalybridge, Cheshire, England with his younger brother Ted (Edward) Withey in a Music Hall production. After the evenings performance, he went to a club near the theatre. At the club, he was teased by his companions about a song he had written called "How are yer?". As Judge and his friends left the club not long before 1 A.M. on the 31st.January, someone challenged him with a bet that he could not write a new song that day and then perform it on stage during that evening's performance. The bet was for five shillings, which in those days was the price of a bottle of whisky plus 6 dozen cigarettes. Jack Judge took up the challenge, but had no idea what he was going to write the song about, until on his way back to 20 Portland Place, Stalybridge, during the early hours of the morning after leaving the club, he heard a fragment of a conversation between two men, one of whom said to the other "It's a long way to.........." in the course of giving someone directions.

He seized upon that phrase as a song-title, and then added the word "Tipperary" to it. He thought about writing the song a little before going to bed, and then 'slept on' the idea. The next day, he arose, ate a fish breakfast; and then went to a public house (bar) called The New Market Inn, in Corporation Street, Stalybridge. This establishment was at that time kept and managed by a Mr. George Lloyd, and Jack Judge often went there. That morning, he wrote the song there in a very short time. His friend, Horace Vernon, wrote down the musical notation by listening to Jack Judge singing the song, and his participation in this historic event made him an hour and a half late for his lunch that day. Horace Vernon was theMusical Director of The Grand Theatre, Stalybridge (later called The Hippodrome). Another friend of Jacks was Harry Williams, who lived next door to his boyhood home. Harry and his brother kept a small country pub in Oldbury, called "The Malt Shovel". Jack Judge had a daytime stall in the local fish market, and was an entertainer in the evenings. Harry often lent him money when trade was poor, and Jack promised in return that is he ever wrote a best-selling song, he would put Harry's name on it also. From the copy of the original song-sheet shown on the next page, we can see that he kept his promise. Both men made a small fortune from the song's royalties.

Jack Judge won his bet by singing "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" for the first time, on the stage of The Grand Theatre during the evening's performance on 31 January 1912. It quickly became a favourite of his repertoire, and its catchy tune soon caught the imagination of the public. Mr. Bert Maden of Stalybridge offered to buy the copyright of the song from Jack Judge, but it was actually purchased by Music Publisher Bert Feldman of London. He then popularised the song on the Music-Hall circuit in Britain by having it sung by singer Florrie Forde, who was a very popular music-hall artiste of the time.

All good wishes, John R