CAHS Snapshots of Local History: Alfred Williams and the Folk Songs of the Upper Thames

With contributions from Cirencester Archaeological & Historical Society, members & friends

Alfred Williams was a poet, writer and folk song collector who lived in the Upper Thames Valley. Unlike most of the collectors of folk songs at the beginning of the Twentieth Century he came from a poor, working class background. He collected the songs as part of his wider project of documenting the lives of the people of the area.

He was born at South Marston, near Swindon, in 1877 – the fifth of the eight children of joiner, Elias Williams and his wife, Elizabeth. After a series of bad debts and some bad behaviour, Elizabeth ejected Elias from the family home and took the children to live with her widowed mother. She earned a little money selling newspapers, and by casual farm work, and looked after her children well, ensuring that they were always fed and properly clothed.

Alfred became a half-timer at school when he was eight and worked afternoons on a local farm, earning two shillings a week, of which he was able to keep a small portion as pocket money. He left school altogether at the age of eleven for farmwork.

The Great Western Railway Works at Swindon offered better prospects and he became an operator of the big steam drop-hammers that forged parts for railway carriages. He wanted to become a writer and took a correspondence course in English Literature as well as studying Latin and Greek, all in his spare time. He married Mary Peck, whom he had met when he was 14. They were a devoted couple, but never had any children.

Alfred’s first books were of poetry, but in 1912 he published A Wiltshire Village in which he described the people of South Marston and their surroundings. This was followed a year later by Villages of the White Horse in which he included songs for the first time.

In 1914 he gave up factory work on the advice of his doctor and resolved to earn his living from writing and market gardening. Wartime restrictions meant that he was not able to publish his next book, Round About the Upper Thames, but the Editor of the Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard agreed to publish the work in parts. While writing this, Williams met several old singers and realised that there was a wealth of songs to be found in the Upper Thames area.

He cycled 13,000 miles to gather some 800 songs and more than 400 of these appeared in the Standard. By the time the series had finished Williams had recovered his health and joined the army as an artilleryman. He was sent to India, where he learned Sanskrit and studied Indian literature.

He returned from the war to discover that his landlady required her house and they needed somewhere new to live. Accommodation post-war was scarce, so he set out to build his own house, with him and Mary acting as labourers for a local builder. Materials were all recycled, including 14,000 bricks bought from an old canal lock which they had to dig out and clean. They moved into their new home in December 1921.

Market gardening and writing were made difficult by hungry birds and delayed royalties. He published some magazine articles, as well as a book of his translations of ancient Indian fables. Then, in 1929 it was discovered that Mary had terminal cancer. He cycled to visit her in hospital every day but, sadly, on the day she was due to be sent home to die, Alfred was found lying on his bed, dead from a heart attack. He was just 56.

His books about the countryside are still enjoyed today, though his Life in a Railway Factory (1915) is widely considered to be his best book with its critical descriptions of working conditions and practices. Many of his folk songs was published in 1923 as Folk Songs of the Upper Thames, a valuable record of the songs loved by the countryfolk of northern Wiltshire and southern Gloucestershire.

Martin Graebe

See: Martin Graebe, The Forgotten Songs of the Upper Thames, from the Alfred Williams Collection (2021), https://theballadpartners.co.uk/publications

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