Ignatius Sancho: Man of Letters and Music

A man of Letters and Music - Ignatius Sancho

Meryl Thomson, a member of the Early Dance Circle, writes about the discovery and interpretation of the music and country dances of a remarkable 18th century gentleman. Meryl will be known to many members. She and her husband Ian played fiddle in the band Green Ginger. Meryl also played at St Andrews for a number of years.

Plaque - Commemorative plaque to Ignatius Sancho in Greenwich Photo credit - Ian Thomson

On a trip in August 2014 to Greenwich on our trusty tandem, Ian and I stopped off at the National Maritime Museum. Our visit coincided with Slavery Remembrance Day - the museum had put on a series of events including a walking tour of Greenwich Park with a historical guide. We were surprised, on reaching the Ranger’s House at the top of the hill, to be shown a plaque nearby commemorating Ignatius Sancho, a prominent eighteenth century character - someone whose music and dances our band Green Ginger has played for many years.

Who was Ignatius Sancho? Sancho was born on a slave ship c.1729 and at the age of two was brought as a slave to Greenwich, where he lived with three sisters. He came to the notice of the Duke of Montagu who taught him to read and better himself. Some eighteen years after arriving in Greenwich Sancho ran away to the Duke’s household where he became a butler and several years later received a legacy from the Montagus which eventually allowed him to set up as a shopkeeper. Sancho was active in the British abolitionist movement and due to owning property was eligible to vote, probably being the first black Briton to do so. He published several important collections of letters and essays and corresponded with the author Laurence Sterne.

Sancho wrote four dance music collections between c.1767 and 1779 containing dance forms popular at the time - stately minuets, lively cotillions and country dances. Until recently, Sancho’s dances were not generally known to today’s historical dancers; however, Ellis Rogers (founder of Quadrille Club) interpreted these for his class at the 2002 Dolmetsch Historical Dance Society Summer School and we recorded the music for four dances - Mungo’s Delight, Kew Gardens, Merry Wives of Westminster and The Dutchess [sic.] of Devonshire’s Reel. The latter, with its lovely flowing patterns and graceful procession to the top of the set, has become a favourite in the historical dance repertoire.

The country dances in Sancho’s collections, particularly the reels, have a definite Scottish feel. Sancho probably travelled to Scotland while working for the Duke of Montagu and one of his dances is called Dalkeith Castle, a property owned by the Duke’s son-in-law. Many of his dances have four-bar phrases repeated, common in traditional Scottish music. The reels are mostly double-time reels for example like the tune used in SCD for General Stuart’s Reel. Sancho was very fond of a particular figure - rights and lefts in four bars. In both the 1776 and 1779 collections more than half of the country dances finish with four bar rights and lefts. This adds to the excitement of the dance but in public Balls can be problematic since dancers really have to move to get round. We recorded one dance, Lord Dalkeith’s Reel, on our album Grand Waterloo Ball. At the Ball an alternative interpretation was tried, changing rights and lefts to cross corners, but still in four bars. This caused hilarity with dancers forgetting who needed to cross first!

Sancho’s ‘Cotillions &c humbly dedicated (with permission) to the Princess Royal’ c.1776 was recently discovered in a private UK collection and made available for research by Sally Petchey and Paul Cooper from the Early Dance Circle (EDC) and Hampshire Regency Dancers. We became involved in the project to provide music to accompany Sally’s book. The collection contains four jigs, eleven reels and seven cotillions plus music for a minuet and a hornpipe. Cotillions are dances in a square formation that consist of the change and the figure. The figure generally is the same for each turn of the dance while the change varies – so the structure of the dance is one change followed by the figure, then another change followed by the figure etc. There could be more than ten turns of the dance with a different change each turn. Cotillions were danced throughout the UK in the eighteenth century, including being popular in Scotland.

In this collection several of the cotillions change rhythm during the figure, from jig to reel, or from dotted rhythm to jig. Although some other cotillions change rhythm during the figure, most progress from a faster jig or reel rhythm to a slower one (usually minuet) before returning to the faster rhythm for the next change or chorus. Sancho’s changes of rhythm are unusual as he prefers to progress from one faster rhythm to another. When danced, we found this elevated the cotillions and were great fun to dance.

In 2018 we were invited, along with a group of dancers, to perform some of these dances to the present Lord Montagu and the public in Palace House at Beaulieu. We were able to use an original fortepiano which was lovely, although not at modern concert pitch, which meant we had to wind down the fiddle strings to match! A great honour and we hope Sancho would have been pleased the dances and music he composed were being seen and heard by a new audience some 200 years later.

Discover Sancho’s life, dances and music in an EDC video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOnjOprUWs0

Dance books of two of Sancho’s collections, with interpreted instructions and background information at https://www.earlydancecircle.co.uk/publications/aids-to-study/ Recordings of the newly discovered 1776 Dances for a Princess collection and also some of his other dances at www.greenginger.bandcamp.com Early Dance Circle: https://www.earlydancecircle.co.uk/

Ian and Meryl - Playing as part of Green Ginger band at Palace House, Beaulieu Photo credit - Ian and Meryl Thomson