Name William Emberley | Died June 10, 1937 | |
William James Emberley (June 26, 1876 – June 10, 1937) of Bay de Verde, Newfoundland (now Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada), the son of Joseph Emberley and Jane Emberley (Russell), was a fisherman who experienced the hunger and plight of the Newfoundland fishermen during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The collapse of international markets made it difficult to sell fish at any price, and for years many Newfoundlanders lived on the government dole of six cents a day.
William adapted an older song to describe the plight of Newfoundland fishermen during the Great Depression and called it "Hard, Hard Times". Emberley's verses, which passed quickly into tradition, are a local application of a pattern established by an 18th-century English broadside which ridiculed certain trades and later was often adapted to describe hard times.
The Emberley version of "Hard, Hard Times" has been recorded by Dick Nolan, and was published in Edith Fowke's The Penguin Book of Canadian Folk Songs (Harmondsworth, England, 1973).