The Lincolnshire Poacher

"The Lincolnshire Poacher" is a traditional English folk song associated with the county of Lincolnshire, and dealing with the joys of poaching. It is considered to be the unofficial county anthem of Lincolnshire. The earliest printed version appeared in York about 1775.

The Lincolnshire Poacher is the quick march of Royal Air Force College Cranwell, the officer training school of the Royal Air Force located in Lincolnshire and was the march of the 10th Regiment of Foot and its successor the Royal Lincolnshire Regiment. The Lincolnshire Poacher is also the regimental song and a march for the 2nd Battalion Royal Anglian Regiment "the Poachers"; the song is very important to the battalion and can be heard many times being sung at full volume from barrack blocks, messes and parties wherever a "poacher" is based. It is also the authorised march of The Lincoln and Welland Regiment of the Canadian Forces.

Radio Lincolnshire used the melody from the end of the song's chorus as the signature tune for its news jingle when it commenced service in 1980,and 1988,commissioned UK jingle company, Alfasound to write a package of jingles based on the 18th Century Folk Song.Variations on this theme continued until early 2006,and today,the station still uses a version with a less pronounced melody from the folk song. In 1961, Benjamin Britten arranged the song as number three in Volume Five of British folk songs. Frank Newman instrumented the song for four hands on piano. In 1978, the Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band issued the Lincolnshire Poacher as its follow up single to their successful Floral Dance, and it was on the 1978 album The Floral Dance.

The first two bars of the tune were used as an interval signal on the numbers station known as Lincolnshire Poacher.