Which is the most popular version of the song “My Grandfathers Clock”?
My Grandfather’s Clock is a song written in 1876 by Henry Clay Work, the author of Marching Through Georgia. It is a standard of British brass bands and colliery bands, and is also popular in bluegrass music. There are two competing theories as to the origin of the song. The most common relates to a wayfarers’ inn in Piercebridge on the border of Yorkshire and County Durham called the George Hotel. The hotel was owned and operated by two brothers called Jenkins, and in the lobby was an upright longcase clock. The clock kept perfect time until one of the brothers died, after which it lost time at an increasing rate, despite the best efforts of the hotel staff and local clockmakers to repair it. When the other brother died, the clock stopped, never to go again. It is said that in 1875 Henry Clay Work visited the hotel and based My Grandfather’s Clock on the stories he heard there. It is said that the song is responsible for the common name “grandfather clock” for what are properly called
