Artist: Wall Family
Author: trad./Arthur Warrell
Label: Graphophone Grand
Year: 1902

"West Country traditional song", long time unknown outside that region. Must have been carried from door to door by Somerset carollers comes Christmas time. The Wall Family claimed to be lineal descendants of Oliver Cromwell. Their wax cylinder phonograph home recording is so unfit for playback it sounds coming straight from their famous forefather's era. Do home recordings count here, You bet! This cylinder wax is regarded as the oldest aural witness of a turn of the century family Christmas. Arthur Warrell, linked to the Bristol university, arranged the tune in 1935 for the Bristol Madrigal Singers and obtained copyright in '39 (registred as I Wish You A Merry Christmas, not in plural).

In December 1940 the BBC choir performed the Warrell arrangement for radio; this was repeated year after year during the war.