Stock-Jobbers
Stock-Jobbers is an English Country Dance. It was published by Playford (John Young) (website) in 1718 in The Dancing Master, Vol. the Second, 3rd ed., London. It was interpreted by George Williams in 2023. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 48 bars. It is in the key: D minor.
Playford (John Young) writes:
Note: Each Strain is to be play'd twice over.
The first Cu. Sett and turn single, and Hands half round Then cast up and go the half Figure into their own Places Then all four meet and clap Hands once, and turn single, then back again, clap Hands and turn single Then the two Men lead thro' the two We. and turn Hands The first Cu. Seet, cast off and turn Hands Then Right and Left quite round
The music consists of three 8 bar strains.
The instructions seem pretty clear, except that the 2s become improper at the end of A1, and they need to be proper in B2 but there is no indication of when that happens. I've turned the half figure eight which makes the 1s proper into a double half figure eight to make both couples proper.
The only other qualm I have is that the Hands half round in A1 has 4 bars allotted to a movement I expect to take 2. This is usually solved by adding either a balance in or out before or after.
In B1 it is tempting to have the turn single take dancers back home and that back again means repeat. But I think it is more likely the turn single leaves them in the center and that back again means "fall back".
Finally to make it less 1s-centric I've changed the The first Cu. Sett and turn single into having everyone set and turn single, and I've made the women take part in B2 rather than just the men.
The tune was published with the dance. It was performed by the Odd Sundays Garage Band (Judy Linsenberg, Shira Kammen and Patti Cobb). The music is used with permission from the Odd Sundays Garage Band.
The animation plays at 106 counts per minute normally, but the first time through the set the dance will often be slowed down so people can learn the moves more readily (no music plays during this slow set). Men are drawn as rectangles, women as ellipses. Each couple is drawn in its own color, however the border of each dancer indicates what role they currently play so the border color may change each time through the minor set.
The dances of George Williams (including interpretations like this one) are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license.
| A1 | 1-4 | Set forward to center and turn single back |
| 5-8 | All circle left half, balance in and fall back | |
| A2 | 1-4 | 1s long cast up as 2s wait and lead down |
| 5-8 | 1s cross down, 2s cast up, half double figure eight | |
| B1 | 1-2 | All meet in the center and clap |
| 3-4 | Turn single right in place | |
| 5-6 | Fall back and clap | |
| 7-8 | Turn single right in place | |
| B2 | 1-4 | Men lead through women and cast back to place as women wait and two hand turn |
| 5-8 | Women lead through men and cast back to place as men wait and two hand turn | |
| C1 | 1-2 | All set to center |
| 3-4 | 1s cast down as 2s lead up | |
| 5-8 | Partner two hand turn | |
| C2 | 1-8 | Face partner, four changes of rights and lefts |
If you find what you believe to be a mistake in this animation, please leave a comment on youtube explaining what you believe to be wrong. If I agree with you I shall do my best to fix it.
If you wish to link to this animation please see my comments on the perils of youtube. You may freely link to this page, of course, and that should have no problems, but use one of my redirects when linking to the youtube video itself:
https://www.upadouble.info/redirect.php?id=StockJobbers
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2023 by George Williams. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2023 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This website is copyright © 2021,2022,2023,2024 by George W. Williams V
My work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Most of the dances have more restrictive licensing, see my notes on copyright, the individual dance pages should mention when some rights are waived.