Cecil James Sharp, 1859–1924
Cecil Sharp was the pre-eminent collector of English folk songs, noting down more than 3000 songs in England plus another 1500 in the United States. This was not only significantly more than any of his contemporaries, but also more than any subsequent collector. Unfortunately, however, despite the county’s proximity to his London home, he seems to have spent very little time in Kent.
The first collecting he carried out in the county was on 29th July 1908, when he noted down six children’s singing games at the primary school in Trottiscliffe – Sharp recorded the location as Trosley, which was apparently the local pronunciation of the village’s name. He returned to Kent in September of that year, collecting a dozen songs in Ruckinge, Ham Street and Warehorne on Tuesday 22nd and Wednesday 23rd September. This visit coincided with Sharp starting a new field notebook (CJS1/9/1/1908/7). The first page of that notebook contains a series of cryptic scrawled notes. My best attempt to decipher them is as follows:
Mr Geo Terry-Tranby [?] (Fam)
County Members Inn Lympne
Tom Hudson on stops [?]. Lodged with Maylem [?]
“Black Man” “Tom Tipples” (Mr T. Major)
Higgins (84) Aldington
Charlie Boulding (Cherry Picker) night night [?]
Presumably these are men who had been recommended to Sharp as worth visiting in search of songs. Perhaps the County Members was recommended as a good place to meet singers. And were ‘Black Man’ and ‘Tom Tipples’ songs in the repertoire of Mr T. Major?
Census records identify a number of people called Maylam. For instance, Frank Maylam, a farmer and fruit grower, who lived at Home Farm, Ham Street; or John Maylam, a poultry dealer originally from Warehorne, who now lived at Lympne Corner.
“Higgins (84) Aldington” would almost certainly be Alfred Higgins, an agricultural labourer, born 1824, born in Bonnington, then living at Claphill, Aldington.
And thanks to David Boulding of the Boulding Study website, we can identify “Charlie Boulding (Cherry Picker)” as the Charles Boulding (1848-1929) who lived at Cherry Gardens, Bonnington – hence his nickname. His grandfather George Bolden (1781-1848) was the great-grandfather of Eyton Boulden from whom Francis Collinson collected a song in 1942 and, therefore, also to the Charles Boulding (1836-1926) who was regarded in the family as the source of that song.
As far as we know, Sharp didn’t actually meet any of the people named – or if he did, he did not collect any songs from them.
The singers from whom Sharp did collect songs were
Sharp returned to Kent on 11th October 1911, when he noted three carols from James Beale’s daughter, Alice Harden. He also noted thirteen sea shanties from Bob Ellison at Belvedere, on the 4th and 7th September 1914.
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