Anne Doggett’s monograph is a well-researched and thorough examination of the practice of town crying, a practice with deep historical roots and a surprisingly lasting cultural impact. While her efforts are centred in Australia, Doggett’s research traverses geographical and chronological expanses to include the practice’s British influence and its supposed roots in ancient Greece. Interdisciplinary in nature, the book weaves together threads from history, literature and music to explore fully the cultural contexts in which the criers worked, as well as their various socio-cultural roles. Seemingly inspired by Doggett’s personal interest in bells and bellringing in Australia, this book takes the reader to a sonic environment dominated not by music, but by the cacophonous sounds of nineteenth-century street life, as criers ring their bells to cut through the din of playing children, conversing pedestrians and competing vendors (p. vii).

The text of Doggett’s book is divided into seven chapters and an un-numbered Conclusion. The first chapter, ‘Town Criers of Australia’, provides a brief, encyclopaedic introduction to the practice of town crying in Australia, from the country’s early days as a penal colony to its establishment as a commonwealth. Chapter two, ‘Strands of History’, traces the historical roots of crying, often extending back to ancient Greece, Rome and beyond. The chapter also introduces various themes regarding the societal roles of town criers that appear continually throughout the subsequent chapters. The third chapter, ‘Sights and Sounds’ describes the uniforms and sounds (musical or otherwise) associated with crying. Chapters four, five and six are each dedicated to an aspect of a town crier’s function within society – namely ‘Informing’, ‘Protecting’ and ‘Entertaining’. The final chapter, ‘Town Crying Today’, details the resurgence of town crying in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and discusses the ways the practice has changed from its historical roots. Each of the seven chapters contains multiple sub-headings that divide the content appropriately.

Overall, Doggett’s prose is concise and well crafted, and her enthusiasm for the topic practically jumps from the page. The material is clearly organized and simply presented. Ideas are introduced, explored and summarized for the reader. For instance, she introduces the idea of town criers as ‘proclaimers’ in Chapter two, and provides historical context for that particular role (pp. 24–31). Doggett then expands upon the idea of ‘proclaiming’ in Chapter four, ‘Informing’ (pp. 64–76). Finally, she summarizes the material in the Conclusion (pp. 124–5). While this structure is logical in concept, in practice such thorough explication can make Doggett’s writing seem redundant. Such stylistic issues should not overshadow, however, the impressive amount of research that has gone into this project. In addition to a large variety of books, articles, theses and Internet sources, Doggett’s bibliography lists 76 newspapers (pp. 162–4). Her studious consultation of these topical sources becomes obvious as she populates her text with the names and anecdotes of Australian town criers, whether in the colonial capital or a frontier mining town.

Chapter one, ‘Town Criers in Australia’ details precisely what its title suggests. Doggett provides a thorough overview of the topic of criers, or ‘bellmen’, in Australia, from its settlement as a penal colony through the first half of the twentieth century. As she points out, the earliest criers were convicts, who inherited their role from an English tradition in which an official human presence, together with a strong voice and a means of attracting attention (i.e., a bell), had proved an effective way of conveying important messages. Unlike their counterparts in England, however, the Australian criers came from a culture of poverty, disadvantage and crime. The earliest criers were often chosen because they were the only ones who were literate enough to read the official proclamations (p. 2). Doggett pays special attention to the social aspects of crying. Most, but not all, men who found work as criers were from the working classes, and many were ‘social misfits who suffered the disadvantages of disability, poverty, or addiction’ (p. 16). Doggett does an admirable job describing the roles these criers played in early Australian society and contextualizing the atmosphere in which they worked. In her zeal to put forward her wealth of information, however, Doggett runs the risk of overwhelming her reader. In a chapter of 21 pages, she names 67 different town criers. Her efforts to reveal so many historically anonymous figures, while laudable, are somewhat obscured behind the deluge of names.

In the second chapter, ‘Strands of History’, Doggett asserts that town criers have inherited their roles and activities from a range of cultural practices, namely that of messenger, proclaimer and watchman (p. 22). She breaks down each of those practices into its component parts, or ‘strands’, and explores how they relate to the practice of town crying. She resists the temptation of drawing direct connections, instead framing her approach as:

The practice of proclaiming receives the most thorough explication, as Doggett divides it into four subcategories: ‘Proclaimers as advertisers’, ‘Proclaiming decrees’, ‘Proclaimers as court officials’ and ‘Proclaimers as news bearers’ (pp. 26–31). This chapter also contains the first reference to a musical composition, as Doggett mentions in passing that Orlando Gibbons’s seventeenth-century consort song Cries of London, contains a passage in which the town crier gives a description of a lost mare (p. 37). Further analysis of Gibbons’ composition comes in the third chapter. Doggett devotes the final section of the second chapter to establishing a precedent for female town criers. As the author suggests, ‘town crying is sometimes looked upon as an unusual activity for females’ (p. 42). Yet, in defiance of such perceptions Doggett reveals a fairly strong tradition of female town crying, particularly in Scotland (p. 42).

In the third chapter, ‘Sights and Sounds’, the author asserts that the voices, bells, uniforms and body language of the Australian bellmen became a direct sensory link to their immediate environment, and thus became one of the shared ways in which citizens established connections to a particular city or town (p. 44). A crier’s uniform helped establish a visual presence as well as marking his official status. Yet, in Australia as in England, official dress was far from standardized (p. 45). A well-dressed figure who confidently performed his duties would command respect and attract the attention of the public. In Australia, however, the accounts of such men are ‘far eclipsed by stories of bellmen who dressed shabbily or whose decorum was regarded as inadequate’ (p. 50). Doggett’s personal interest in bells shines through as she devotes several pages to explaining why bells are uniquely suited to be the town crier’s instrument of choice. Carrying with it the ‘sacred overtones’ and ‘magical properties’ that became associated with the bell, criers – both colonial and modern – have chosen the bell for its effective ability to draw attention and convey a sense of urgency (pp. 51–3).

In one of the more thought-provoking sections of the book, Doggett explores how early art, music and literature have left some useful indications as to how traditional cries may have sounded. Some printed collections depicting images of early criers also include the words of their calls. Doggett invokes literary scholar Sean Shesgreen to note that many of these cries had a poetic quality that incorporated some of the literary techniques associated with folk music, such as alliteration (the ‘merry milk maid’) and descriptive phrases (‘fine singing bird’) (p. 56).Footnote ¹ She uses Gibbons’ Cries of London and an Elizabethan treble part book to assert that bellmen and town criers employed their own recognizable musical phrases in their calls.Footnote ² From her few musical sources, Doggett extrapolates that some calls were monotone in delivery, others lay around the interval of a third or fifth, while still others embraced leaps of an octave (pp. 59–60). Unfortunately, while such musical characteristics can be applied to English town crying, it is unclear if such characteristics were applicable in Australia, as Doggett notes that ‘no clear descriptions or attempts to represent the pitches and rhythms of [Australian] calls have been found’ (p. 60).

Chapter four, ‘Informing’, explores the various and evolving roles of town criers in Australia as they sought to inform the public, whether as an announcer, advertiser, public entertainer or political electioneer. The importance of town criers as informers waned with the proliferation of newspapers. Records show that by the late nineteenth century at least 48 daily newspapers were circulating in Australian states. As the official duties of criers were taken over by print media, town criers increasingly found work in the private sector, often announcing for auction houses or places of entertainment. Their role, once integral to effective colonial management, lost much of its official status and was used to a greater extent for promotional purposes (pp. 64–5).

The fifth chapter, ‘Protecting’, explores the various facets of town crying related to public safety. Colonial Australian criers often also assumed the role of watchmen, a role they inherited from the tradition of English bellmen. Dating from seventeenth-century England, bellmen took an active role in patrolling the streets in both night and day, and even took part in detaining suspicious individuals and administering punishment (pp. 33–5, 79). Another role town criers often assumed was alerting the public and rousing community assistance when a person, often a child, went missing. Doggett provides several pages of anecdotes of successful and unsuccessful attempts at recovering lost children, underlining one of the important roles town criers held in nineteenth-century Australian society (pp. 85–90).

Chapter six, ‘Entertaining’, outlines the sometimes-precarious nature of town crying. At the best of times, people were proud of their town criers; they made street life interesting and provided the town with a distinctive feature. All too often, however, criers became objects of sympathy, embarrassment and even resentment. Many criers slipped naturally into the role of entertainer or jester and were remembered more for their antics rather than for the practical services they provided. Just like traditional jesters or fools, these criers often lived marginal lives within their own communities (p. 91). As with traditional clowns, Doggett notes that physical disabilities were common among town criers and that town crying could be carried out by men who were otherwise unfit for other types of community work (p. 92).

In the seventh chapter, ‘Town Crying Today’, Doggett enthusiastically describes the state of twenty-first century town crying. She confidently asserts that although the work of modern criers differs considerably from that of their historic counterparts, ‘town criers around the world are still playing a significant role in their communities’ (p. 111). The role of modern criers is largely ceremonial; one is likely to see a crier in action at a formal occasion or an organized event – civic reception for a visiting dignitary, local festival, or a re-enactment of a historical event (p. 112). She details the existence of guilds established, not only in Australia but across the world, to preserve and promote the craft of town crying and to hold competitions (pp. 112–14). There are even world championships for modern town criers, the most recent of which was held in Maryborough, Queensland in September 2005 (p. 119).

Anne Doggett’s A Far Cry: Town Crying in the Antipodes is a well written, informative resource and is appropriate for scholars and general enthusiasts alike. Students of Australian history or colonial Australian culture would derive the greatest benefit, but the book contains enough interdisciplinary material to pique the interests of wider audiences as well, especially those interested in British history or in traditional, pre-industrial cultures. Musicologists may find the book lacking in musical material, as the only significant amount of detail or analysis is focused on one piece, Orlando Gibbons’ Cries of London. Regardless, Doggett has succeeded in describing in vivid detail the roles and importance of town criers in Australian society. These figures, largely forgotten by history, finally have their story told. One hopes that Doggett’s work will inspire others to explore under-researched and under-appreciated aspects of traditional cultures.