Dr John Clague endeavoured to collect and preserve as many old Manx songs, customs and sayings as possible at the end of the 19th century as possible before it was too late. Here, Adrian Cain, Culture Vannin’s language development officer, looks back at the contribution he made.
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Dr John Clague (1842-1908) was a collector of music, song, calendar customs, Manx proverbs and folk medicine remedies and charms.
With fellow collectors, WH and JF Gill, he published Manx National Songs in 1896 and Manx National Music in 1898.
His original music notebooks dating from the 1890s contain 315 melodies.
His bilingual book Cooinaghtyn Manninagh: Manx Reminiscences was published posthumously in 1911 and is a real treat for any Manx speaker.
Clague attended Ballabeg Village School, Castletown Grammar School and King William’s College.
He worked on the family farm at Ballanorris for a few years before going to London to study medicine at Guy’s Hospital.
He worked as a doctor in the parishes of Santon, Rushen, Arbory and Malew and was surgeon to the Household of the Governor from 1888-1901.
Clague was a keen amateur violin player and formed the Castletown String Band.
He composed the well-known hymn, Crofton, named after his house in Castletown whilst he was a founding member of the Manx Language Society, formed in 1899.
Dr Clague was aware that the use of Manx Gaelic was in rapid decline at the end of the 19th century as were old songs, customs and sayings. He endeavoured to collect and preserve as much of the ‘oral tradition’ as possible before it was too late.
He used his position as a well-respected and loved doctor to collect songs and melodies in the towns and the countryside in the south of the Isle of Man.
Most of his informants were men and they came from different working backgrounds: they included a quarryman, surveyor of roads, parish clerk and a painter.
His most well-known informants were a blind singer called Tom Kermode - nicknamed ‘Bwoie Doal’ (Blind boy) who was a fisherman from Bradda - and his coachman Charles Clague who played the fiddle .
As a trained musician, Dr Clague could accurately write down the melodies as he collected them whilst given the respect people had for him he was always welcomed into people’s homes.
Described as ‘a Manxman from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet’ his epitaph reads: ‘Hie eh mygeayrt jannoo mie, which translates as: ‘He went about doing good’.
Next month’s column we’ll return to the 21st century with our personal biographies of those involved with the language.