Lubrano Collection of Broadside Ballads

The Lubrano Collection of Broadside Ballads is a collection of 580 English ballads from the nineteenth century, the last great period of broadside ballad production. The collection is organized into ten folders:

Folder 1: #'s 1-69 (Humorous);

Folder 2: #'s 1-17 (Military);

Folder 3: #'s 1-37 (London Printers: Birt, Catnach, Disley, Evans, Fortey, Hill, Hodges, Marks, Mitchelson, Paul, Pitts, Sharp, Such, etc.);

Folder 4: #'s 1-64 (religious themes, moral instruction Ireland and the Irish, a number with the date written in pencil (#12with annotations));

Folder 5: #'s 1-34 (miscellaneous);

Folder 6: #'s 1-32 (sporting events and shows, trade and political issues, crime-particularly murders-, religious themes);

Folder 7: #'s 1-27 (single strip broadsides about sailors and the sea, many from the printer J. Pitts);

Folder 8: #'s 1-102 (printed by Harkness of Preston);

Folder 9: #'s 1-39 (Miscellaneous);

Folder 10: #'s 1-36 (Sentimental).

The ballads in this collection are typical examples of nineteenth century broadside printer's art with most sheets containing two ballads, many with a woodcut at the top and displayed title underneath it, and often with another decorative cut at the bottom of the sheet. The same woodcut is often used with different ballads. Sometimes the matching of woodcut, title and ballad are incongruous as in the ballad "Old Folks at Home" (Folder 4, #55). Some of the broadsides display the printers name and address, e.g. Folder 1, # 61: Joseph Ford, Printer, 70, Pinstone Street, Sheffield. In a number of cases (e.g. Folder 1, #66) the printers name and the date of printing is written in by hand: "Joseph Tate, printer, July 1841." Folder 3 consists entirely of the work of London printers, particularly those operating in the Seven Dials district. All of the broadsides are in roman type; a few still display the long or descending s (?) (Folder #7, #'s 5 and 21, printer J. Pitts; and Folder 10, #11).