Rowland Harrison

Rowland “Rowley” Harrison (1841–1897) was a Tyneside poet and singer/songwriter, from Gateshead in County Durham. Possibly his best known work is “Geordy (or Geordie) Black”, an example of Geordie dialect.

Rowland Harrison was born 23 June 1841 in King William Street, Gateshead and baptised at St Mary’s Church, Gateshead (according to inscriptions in his family bible).

Little is known of his early life, but he started singing in 1864 at the age of only 23 and performed in most of the local concert and music halls including The Victoria Music Hall, Oxford Music Hall, The Empire, The People's Palace, all of Newcastle upon Tyne, The Wear Music Hall, Sunderland, The AlhambraSouth Shields, , Darlington, and many other places even as far away as Glasgow.

For many of his songs he wrote both the words and music, unlike many other writers of the time who only wrote new lyrics to old tunes.

He was known as "Rowley" and his best known character was "Geordie Black". He used to dress up as this character for his stage act. He wrote a song about (and a public house was named after) the character.

His other jobs were as landlord of the Geordy Black in Gateshead and the Commercial Hotel at Winlaton (it was here that he looked after Joe Wilson for a short while) and manager of his own concert halls. One of his innovations was to erect a large marquee, which according to the local stories was “devoted to singing and Entertainments” and where he and others would perform, singing and generally entertaining the crowds at the Newcastle Town Moor Temperance Festival.

Rowland Harrison moved to Sunderland when he was appointed as manager of the Empire theatre. He died there on 9 June 1897 and was buried at Monkwearmouth Cemetery.

...
Wikipedia