G. W. Hunt

George William Hunt (c.1837 – 1 March 1904), known in later life as Jingo’ Hunt, was an English writer of music hall songs, best known for “MacDermott’s War Song” also known as the “Jingo Song”. Biography He was born in Finsbury, London, and taught himself to play piano and harmonium as a child. He spent some time in South Africa before returning to England, where at one time he was the manager of the Canterbury Music Hall on Westminster Bridge Road. He started to write songs for music hall performers, and was one of the first to write both words and music - previously words had usually been written to fit existing tunes. Hunt wrote over 50 songs performed by Leybourne, including “Awfully Clever”, “Up in a Balloon”, and “Don’t Make a Noise Or Else You’ll Wake the Baby”. He also wrote songs for many of the other popular performers of the period, including Alfred Vance, Herbert Campbell, Jenny Hill, Annie Adams, and Fred French. After initially rejecting the song, MacDermott changed his mind and bought the song from Hunt for five pounds. Some years later, Hunt said: My breakfast was half an hour late that morning, so I sat down and wrote the whole chorus. After breakfast I wrote the