Period referred to: 15th century
Sound category: Economic > Transport for hire
Title of work: Knight's London, Vol. I
Type of publication: History and gazetteer
Author: Charles Knight
Year of publication: 1841
Page/volume number: Chapter 1
Songs and cries of Thames watermen
The watermen of London, like every other class of people, were once musical; and their "oars kept time" to many a harmony, which, if not so poetical as the song of the gondoliers, was full of the heart of merry England. The old city chronicler, Fabyan, tells us that John Norman, Mayor of London (he held this dignity in 1454), was "the first of all mayors who brake that ancient and old-continued custom of riding to Westminster upon the morrow of Simon and Jude's day." John Norman "was rowed thither by water, for which the watermen made of him a roundel, or song, to his great praise, the which began,
'Row the boat, Norman, row to thy leman.' "
The watermen's ancient chorus, as we collect from old ballads, was
"Heave and how, rumbelow;"
and their burden was still the same in the time of Henry VIII., not forgetting, "Row the boat, Norman."