Ned Corvan

Ned Corvan was a singer, songwriter, fiddler and caricaturist, and a contemporary of Joe Wilson and Geordie Ridley. His comic work could be sharply political: he supported working-class causes, including the seamen’s strike of 1851.

Alongside touring the region, he opened and ran Corvan’s Music Hall in South Shields. Like Wilson and Ridley, he had a short life. He died in 1865; specialist research places his birth around 1827, making him about 38.