Mary Cox, the head of Cirencester Girls School, could not have known that her decision to organise a ‘Pastoral Fete’ for her girls in July 1909 would lead to Cirencester becoming a leader in the revival of English folk dancing. She had heard about the work of Mary Neal, the founder of the Esperance Club for working girls in London, whose members had enthusiastically taken up English Country Dance and Morris Dancing and were teaching it to other groups around the country.
Together with the head of the boys’ school, she arranged for one of the Esperance Club teachers to come to Cirencester and coach a group of 200 girls and boys in folk dances, songs and singing games. Their two-hour performance in the Abbey Grounds included Morris and Country Dancing by boys’ and girls’ teams, as well as children’s games for the youngest, all detailed in lengthy newspaper reports.
Laura Swanwick, of Coates, had recognised that the village girls had few opportunities for activities outside school. When she heard about the success of the event in Cirencester, she arranged for another of Mary Neal’s teachers to come to Coates to prepare them for an event in the grounds of the Swanwick’s house in June 1910. Some of the village boys were also taught Morris dances to make up a group of about 70 young performers who acquitted themselves so well that a further show was arranged in the Bingham Hall in Cirencester the following Autumn.
Emily Gimson, wife of the Arts and Crafts designer Ernest Gimson, had a similar interest in the children of her own village at Sapperton. She and her husband had learned about the old folk dances from their postman, Charles Smith. Swanwick and Gimson invited the song and dance collector, Cecil Sharp, to meet Smith. Sharp had worked closely with Mary Neal in the past but there was now some rivalry between them. In April 1911 Sharp came to Laura Swanwick’s house to hear from Charles Smith about the songs and dances that he knew. That November, Sharp came to Cirencester to give two lectures on ‘The Morris, Country and Sword Dances of England’ in the Bingham Hall. The talks were illustrated by Sharp’s team of dancers from London as well as the children of Coates and Sapperton.
Laura Swanwick was a very capable organiser, and it was she who first suggested to Sharp that a national organisation was needed to help focus the revival of folk dance in England and to ensure that funds could be raised through a society, rather than by individuals. The English Folk Dance Society (EFDS) was formed at the end of 1911 and, in the following March, Cirencester and District became the first branch of the new Society, rapidly followed by Oxford, Kelmscott and several others.
A day of dance and song competitions at the Bingham Hall was organised as an inaugural event with Cecil Sharp as the judge. These competitions were repeated in 1913 and 1914, but the First World War put an end to all such activities. After the war, tuition resumed and in 1923 the local branches of EFDS were amalgamated to form the Gloucestershire and Bristol Branch. On 21 July, Laura Swanwick organised a celebratory festival for 700 dancers, hosted by Earl and Countess Bathurst in Cirencester Park, when once again Sharp was on hand to judge the competitions.
Cecil Sharp died in 1924, but EFDS continued to thrive. Laura Swanwick had suffered ill-health for several years and in 1926 she retired from the organisation into which she had devoted so much time and effort. She died two years later and her obituary in the EFDS News described her ‘untiring energy and marvellous organising ability’ and that ‘Her reward, the only one she ever asked, was the rapid growth of the work’.
In 1932, EFDS joined with the Folk Song Society to become the English Folk Dance and Song Society, which continues to support folk dance and song and to honour the memory of Cecil Sharp and those who, like Laura Swanwick, supported him in the revival of English folk dance and song.
Martin Graebe
With thanks to Glos Archives and the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library.
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