Scrapbook on Cecil Sharp's English Folk Dance Society school, 1920-1931

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Summary

Creators:

Abstract:

This collection comprises a scrapbook of correspondence, photographs, clippings, brochures, and programs relating to Cecil Sharp's English Folk Dance Society school at Aldeburgh, England. The scrapbook was kept by Mrs. Dudley Hervey.

Extent:

0.2 Linear Feet (1 box)

Language:

English .

Preferred citation:

Scrapbook on Cecil Sharp's English Folk Dance Society School. MS-P28. Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California. Date accessed.

For the benefit of current and future researchers, please cite any additional information about sources consulted in this collection, including permanent URLs, item or folder descriptions, and box/folder locations.

Background

Scope and content:

The scrapbook contains student and staff sign-in rosters for Easter and Summer courses and demonstrations. 44 photographs depict folk dancing at Aldeburgh School, as well as Sharp and other staff members. Newspaper clippings, including a brief obituary, relate to Cecil Sharp. An undated clipping written after Sharp's death details the importance of his work reviving the traditions of English folk song and dance. Performance programs and brochures detail instruction schedules and demonstrations at the Aldeburgh School. Hervey's English Folk Dance Society membership cards for 1922 and 1923 are mounted on the inside front of the scrapbook.

11 signed letters written by Sharp to Hervey relate to dance matters at the school. A letter from Joan Sharp thanks Hervey for her well wishes during one of Sharp's illnesses. A typed letter signed by Maud Karpeles, honorary secretary of the English Folk Dance Society from 1922 to 1929, mentions Sharp's illness, and another from Karpeles, written in 1926, refers to the school. A typewritten proof letter on Belstead House School letterhead dated July 7th, 1924 details a meeting to be held relating to the English Folk Dance Society.

Biographical / historical:

Mrs. Dudley Hervey was the headmistress of the Belstead House School in Aldeburgh, England, where the English Folk Dance Society school was held beginning in 1922. Hervey kept a scrapbook related to Cecil Sharp, the musicologist, and founder of the English Folk Dance Society.

Sharp is credited with collecting and reviving traditional folk songs and dances from the English countryside and reinstating them into the cultural life of the nation. He was born in London on November 22, 1859, and was educated at Uppingham School and Cambridge University. After a brief career in law, including a stint as associate to the chief justice of South Australia in 1889, he changed his career from law to music. He became assistant organist of Adelaide and co-director of the Adelaide College of Music in South Australia. In 1892 he returned to England. He was master at Ludgrove Preparatory School from 1893 to 1910 and principal of the Hamstead Conservatoire of Music from 1896 to 1905.

Sharp was first attracted to folk dancing when he saw the Morris Dancers in Headington, Oxford in 1899. He then began his life-long work to revive and preserve traditional folk music and dance. Sharp published several books of folk dance collections which included Morris dances, country dances, and sword dances of Northern England. He also published collections of native English folk songs. In 1911 he founded the English Folk Dance Society and initiated the teaching of folk song and dance in English schools. The school sessions held at Aldeburgh were to be the last directed by Sharp before his death. He was also a collector of folk songs and dances of America. Between 1916 and 1918 he visited the Appalachian Mountains to study American folk songs of English origin.

Cecil Sharp died in Hampstead, England on June 23, 1924. In 1930, Cecil Sharp House was established in London as a center for the preservation of folk song and dance, and to serve as the headquarters of the English Folk Dance Society.

For further biographical information, see Maud Karpeles, Cecil Sharp: his life and work (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967).

Acquisition information:

Acquired, 1998.

Processing information:

Processed by Karen Rosen, 2001.

Indexed terms

Subjects:: Folk dancing, English
Country dance -- England
Dance -- Archives
Dance schools -- England
Dancers.
Dance teachers.
Dance cards
Photographic prints
Scrapbooks
Names:: English Folk Dance Society -- Archives
Sharp, Cecil James

Access and use

Restrictions:: Collection is open for research.
Terms of access:: Property rights reside with the University of California. Literary rights are retained by the creators of the records and their heirs. For permissions to reproduce or to publish, please contact the Head of Special Collections and University Archives.