Cutaway Mike, Michael HURLOCK (1765-1846)

Individual Events and Attributes

Marriage

Individual Note 1

Cutaway Mike: the name comes from his job, which was to police the Thames; if boats had not paid their mooring fees, Mike's job was to cut the ropes which held the boats to their mooring. There is also a song, in a version by Mike Spicer (Sussex folk singer) about Cutaway Mike.

Cut Away Mike from 'Up in the North, Down in the South' (Sung by George Spicer at his home in Selsfield, Sussex. 1973)

Little Mike he was born about six in the morn,

Sure he and his mother were there at the time.

Now, well I'm a-singing, pray don't you be scorning,

For all his adventures I'll tell in my rhyme.

Chorus:

With a rub-a-dub, rowdy-dow, fife-away, all-the-day,

Fill-a-loo, that'll-do, cut away Mike.

He once took a walk to his grandfather Tower,

Who lived about six hundred miles out of town.

Got there in an hour, then lifted a tower,

And returned home again with a church in his lap.

He once made a contract with baker and butcher,

For all they could bake and for all they could kill.

A whole batch of bread he consumed for his dinner

Then stuck a cow's tail in the hole of his tooth.

Spoken: (Laughs) Don't know no more.

Victorian broadside printers called this The Adventures of Little Mike. Some printers put it alongside The Bonny Bunch of Roses, but unlike the latter, it has not survived well in tradition. There are various longer versions of the Ballad of Cutaway Mike.

Individual Note 2

Mike was a weaver (1802) & Asst. Collector of Dues, Billingsgate Market 1826. Later he was an Asst.Clerk & Collector. He died 7 Nov 1846 ('of old age' at 37 Gloucester Street, Hackney Rd., B.G. in the

household of James/Ann Saunders.)