Annotation:Aldridge's Hornpipe (1)

Emmerson (Rantin' Pipe and Tremblin' String, 1971) explains that toward the end of the 18th century a genre of tunes gained popularity as vehicles for stage hornpipes "performed by the numerous ent'racte dancers then so much in fashion." The name of the hornpipe derives in all probability from the dancer for whom it was composed, Robert Aldridge (b.c. 1738-1793), whom Chambers describes as 'a famous pantomimist and dancing master'. A doggerel poem in Gentleman's Magazine (January, 1772) describes him as "a dancer of ease." The Irish-born Aldridge was a familiar performer in the theaters of London and Dublin in the 1760's and 1770's, and even seems to have resided in Edinburgh at the end of the 1770's where he is recorded to have founded the Boar Club with the elder Schetky (one of the popular gentlemen's clubs, where porcine terminology and nicknames were used in honor of the landlord, Mr. Hogg). However long he lived in the Scottish city, Aldridge died in Edinburgh in 1793. Alexander McGlashan's 1781 Collection of Scots Measures, Hornpipes, Jigs, Allemands, etc. has several items marked "as danced by Aldridge."

Print sources: Cole (1000 Fiddle Tunes), 1940; pg. 86. Emmerson (Rantin' Pipe and Tremblin' String), 1971; No. 85, pg. 163. Kerr (Merry Melodies), vol. 2; No. 344, pg. 38. Ryan's Mammoth Collection, 1883; pg. 120. Stewart-Robertson (The Athole Collection), 1884.