Septimus Winner

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Septimus Winner (11 May 1827 - 22 November 1902) is best known as a songwriter during the 19th century. He used his own name, and also the pseudonyms Alice Hawthorne, Percy Guyer, Mark Mason, Apsley Street, and Paul Stenton. Also a teacher, performer, and music publisher, Winner was born in Philadelphia, the seventh child to Joseph E. Winner (an instrument maker specializing in violins) and wife Mary Ann. Mary Ann Winner was a relative of Nathaniel Hawthorne, hence Septimus' use of the Hawthorne name as part of his pseudonym, Alice Hawthorne. Winner attended Philadelphia Central High School. Although largely self-taught in the area of music, he did take lessons from Leopold Meignen around 1853, but by that time he was already an established instrumental teacher, and performed locally with various ensembles.

From around 1845 to 1854 Septimus Winner partnered his brother Joseph as music publishers. Septimus continued in the business with various partners and names up until 1902. Many of Winner's best-known songs, published under the name Alice Hawthorne, were so popular that they became known generically as "Hawthorne's Ballads". In 1855 Winner published the song "Listen to the Mocking Bird" under the Alice Hawthorne name. He had arranged and added words to a tune by local singer/guitarist Richard Milburn, an employee, who he credited. Later he sold the rights, reputedly for five dollars, and subsequent publications omitted Milburn's name from the credits. The song was indeed a winner, selling about fifteen million copies in the United States alone. Another of his successes, and still familiar, is "Der Deitcher's Dog", or "Oh where, oh where ish mine little dog gone", a text that Winner set to the German folk tune "Im Lauterbach hab'ich mein' Strumpf verlorn" in 1864, which recorded massive sales during Winner's lifetime.

In 1862, Winner was arrested for treason because he wrote and published a song entitled "Give Us Back Our Old Commander: Little Mac, the People's Pride". It concerned General George B. McClellan, whom President Lincoln had just fired from the command of the Army of the Potomac. McClellan was a popular man, and his supporters bought more than eighty thousand copies of the song between them in its first two days of publication. Winner was in deep disgrace, and was only released from arrest after promising to destroy all of the remaining copies. The song reappeared in 1864 when McClellan was a presidential candidate. In 1880 the words were rewritten and the song was a campaign ditty on behalf of Ulysses S. Grant.

In addition to composing popular songs, Winner also produced more than two hundred instruction method books for more than twenty-three instruments. He wrote more than fifteen hundred easy arrangements for various instruments and almost two thousand arrangements for violin and piano.

The most popular Septimus Winner songs include:

"How Sweet Are the Roses" (1850)
"I Set My Heart Upon a Flower" (1854)
"What Is Home Without a Mother" (1854)
"Listen to the Mocking Bird" (1855)
"Abraham's Daughter" or "Raw Recruits" (1861)
"Der Deitcher's Dog" (1864)
"Ellie Rhee" or "Carry Me Back to Tennessee" (1865)
"What Care I?" (1866)
"Whispering Hope" (1868)
"Ten Little Indians" (Originally "Ten Little Niggers") (1868)
"Come Where the Woodbine Twineth" (1870)
"Love One Gone Is Lost Forever" (1870)

"Der Deitcher's Dog" is particularly noteworthy as its first verse has become a popular nursery rhyme:

Oh where, oh where has my little dog gone?

Oh where, oh where can he be?

With his ears cut short, and his tail cut long,

Oh where, oh where is he?

The original song is written in such a way as to convey a thick German accent, and subsequent verses proceed to praise lager but lament the fact that 'mit no money' it is not possible to drink, and to praise sausages and thence to speculate on the fate of the missing dog ...

Dey makes un mit dog und dey makes em mit horse,

I guess dey makes em mit he

Winner was especially popular for his ballads published under the pseudonym of Alice Hawthorne. His brother, Joseph Eastburn Winner (1837 - 1918) was also a composer and published under the alias Eastburn.

A version of the rhyme from "Ten Little Indians" was used by Agatha Christie in her novel And Then There Were None, which served as a focal point (and "storyline") for ten killings on a remote island.

Septimus Winner was inducted into the Songwriters' Hall of Fame in 1970.