John “Jack” Shield

John "Jack" Shield (1768– 6 August 1848) was an English songwriter. One of his best known and liked songs at the time was "Bob Cranky's Adieu". Shield was a contemporary of the earliest Geordie dialect songwriters Thomas Thompson and John Selkirk.

He was born at Broomhaugh, a village in Northumberland near Riding Mill in the Tyne Valley in 1768.

He and his elder brother Hugh, moved to Newcastle upon Tyne in John's twenties, and the first real mention of him was in 1800 when they was running the family's large wholesale/grocery business, which they had built up. The business was in Middle Street, facing the Cloth Market and opposite where the "White Hart" stood.

In 1803, his name is on a petition protesting against taxes.

Shield had a free and easy nature, was remarkably quiet and inoffensive, and, it seems, wrote dialect materials as a hobby. His brother Hugh was the opposite and could have a fiery temper.

His first poetic/musical offering appeared in 1802 in the Newcastle Chronicle and he later went on to write well-known Tyneside songs about William Scott (alias Cull Billy; alias Silly Billy). He wrote the famous successful appeal for Scott's aid. Two of his other works, "Lord Size" and "Fair Delia" appear in the Northern Songster in 1806.

His song "Oxygen Gas" was noted as being sung at the Theatre Royal, Newcastle.

Around 1830, the council purchased the family property in Middle Street, together with most of the adjacent property in the area, to demolish them for major improvements. The Shields moved to new premises at the top of Dean Street. Towards the end of 1890, the descendants sold the property and business thus closing the almost-one-hundred-year connection of the family with the area.

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