Editing Cecil Sharp (section)

===English folk song and dance===

Sharp was not the first to research folk songs in England, which had already been studied by late-19th century collectors like [[Lucy Broadwood]], [[Frank Kidson]] and [[Sabine Baring-Gould]]. He became aware of English folk music in 1899, when he witnessed a performance by the Headington Quarry Morris dancers just outside Oxford. He approached their musician [[William Kimber]], an expert player of the Anglo-concertina and a skilled dancer, and asked permission to notate some of the dances. Kimber went on to become Sharp's main source for the notation of Cotswold [[Morris dances|Morris Dancing]], gave demonstrations at his lectures, and became a lifelong friend.<ref name="Karpeles"/>

In August 1903, Sharp visited the home of his friend [[Charles Marson]], a Christian Socialist he had met in Adelaide, and by then a vicar in Hambridge, Somerset. There he heard the gardener John England sing the traditional song ''The Seeds of Love''. Although Sharp had already joined the Folk-Song Society in 1901, this was his first experience of folk song in the field, and it set him on a new career path.<ref name="Schofield">{{cite journal |last=Schofield |first=Derek |date=2004 |title=Sowing the Seeds: Cecil Sharp and Charles Marson in Somerset in 1903 |journal=Folk Music Journal |volume= 8|issue=4 |pages=484–512}}</ref> Between 1904 and 1914 he collected more than 1,600 songs in rural Somerset and over 700 songs from elsewhere in England. He published five volumes of Folk Songs from Somerset<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sharp |first1=Cecil |last2=Marson |first2=Charles |date=1904–1906 |title=Folk Songs from Somerset, Series 1-3|location=London |publisher=Simpkin}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Sharp |first=Cecil |date=1908–1909 |title=Folk Songs from Somerset, Series 4-5|location=London |publisher=Simpkin}}</ref> and numerous other books, including collections of sea shanties and folk carols, and became a passionate advocate for folk song, giving numerous lectures, and setting out his manifesto in ''English Folk Song: Some Conclusions'' in 1907.

In the years between 1907 and the First World War, Sharp became more focussed on traditional dance. In 1905 he met [[Mary Neal]], the organiser of the Espérance Girls' Club, a philanthropic organisation for working-class young women in London, who was seeking suitable dances for them to perform. This initiated a partnership which, though initially cordial and successful, soured over an ideological disagreement, Sharp's insistence on correct traditional practice coming up against Neal's preference for flamboyance and energy. This developed into a power struggle over control of the Morris dance movement, and finally into a public feud.<ref name="Judge1">{{cite journal |last=Judge |first=Roy|date=1989 |title=Mary Neal and the Esperence Morris |journal=Folk Music Journal |volume= 5|issue=5 |pages=137–163}}</ref><ref name="Judge2">{{cite journal |last=Judge |first=Roy|date=2002 |title=Cecil Sharp and Morris, 1906–1909 |journal=Folk Music Journal |volume= 8|issue=2 |pages=195–228}}</ref><ref name="Boyes"/> Sharp pursued his interest in dance through a teaching post at the new School of Morris Dancing under the auspices of the South West Polytechnic in Chelsea, set up by the Principal, [[Dorette Wilkie]],<ref>{{Cite ODNB |last1=Clarke |first1=Gill |last2=Webb |first2=Ida M. | title= Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: Wilkie, Dorette|date=2005-09-22 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/63387 |url=https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/63387}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Wilkie, Dorette - Cecil Sharp's People |url=https://cecilsharpspeople.org.uk/wilkie-dorette.html |access-date=2023-03-10 |website=cecilsharpspeople.org.uk}}</ref> and stepped up his field collecting efforts, resulting in the publication of his notations over five volumes of ''The Morris Book'' (1907–1913). It has been argued that Sharp emphasised the Cotswold tradition of Morris dancing at the expense of other regional styles,<ref name="Walkowitz">{{cite book |last=Walkowitz |first=Daniel |date=2010 |title=City Folk: English Country Dance and the Politics of the Folk in Modern America |location=New York |publisher=New York University |isbn=9780814794692}}</ref> although he did collect dances in Derbyshire.<ref name="Judge2"/>

Sharp also developed an interest in sword dancing, and between 1911 and 1913 published three volumes of ''The Sword Dances of Northern England'',<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sharp |first1=Cecil |date=1911–1913 |title=The Sword Dances of Northern England, Parts 1-3|location=London |publisher=Novello}}</ref> which described the obscure and near-extinct [[Rapper sword]] dances of Northumbria and the [[Long Sword dance]]s  of North Yorkshire. This led to the revival of both traditions in their home areas, and later elsewhere.