'You Will Be Interested to Hear of a Project to Form a Folk Song Society': W. H. Gill and the Founding of the Folk-Song Society
2011; Volume: 10; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2056-6166
Autores Tópico(s)Philippine History and Culture
ResumoWilliam Henry Gill (1839-1923) is best known for his Manx National Songs (1896) and, to a lesser extent, Manx National Music (1898). With his brother, John Frederick Gill (1842-99), they collected traditional song in the Isle of Man. W. H. Gill's reputation was sufficient for him to be present at the founding of the Folk-Song Society and to be involved later as a committee member. A letter to his brother provides a hitherto unknown eyewitness account of the 27 January 1898 gathering called by Kate Fee, as well as an account of the provisional committee meeting of 8 February 1898. A unique copy of the Folk-Song Society prospectus has survived. This article discusses the background of W H. Gill; his involvement, through A. P Graves, with the Irish Literary Society, where he became known to Kate Lee; his activities with the Folk-Song Society; and his subsequent involvement in collecting songs in Sussex, the county to which he had retired. There he encountered Henry Burstow, and in 1917 published his Songs of the British Folk. The founding of the Folk-Song Society in 1898 has been previously discussed in Folk Music Journal by C. J. Bearman, taking the figure of Kate Lee, the first honorary secretary, as a focus for discussion as to how the society came to be constituted and the manner in which it operated during her term of office. (1) His most notable source was the diaries of Lucy Broadwood, who was present at the initial gathering called together by Lee to discuss the proposal to found the society. There is now a second eyewitness account to this preliminary meeting of 27 January 1898, as well the meeting of the provisional committee on 8 February 1898. This comes in a letter from W. H. Gill (1839-1923) to his brother J. F. Gill (1842-99), both of whom were active in collecting traditional songs in the Isle of Man in 1895 and again in 1898. 'You will be interested to hear of a project to form a Folk Song Society (see circular letter enclosed, which please return)', W. H. Gill wrote to his brother on 10 February 1898. (2) In fact, the prospectus was not returned and so avoided being lost along with the rest of W. H. Gill's personal papers; it is currently the only surviving copy known of the prospectus itself. (3) The purpose of this piece is to add to the historiography of the Folk-Song Society by a description of this new source material and by filing in the background of W. H. Gill. His path was to cross with the society on more than one occasion. William Henry Gill The Gill brothers had an unusual background for collectors of Manx traditional song in view of the fact that they were not born in the Isle of Man but on another island, namely Sicily, in the Bourbon Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Although their parents were Manx-born, their father, Joseph, had moved to Sicily to work as a land agent for Joseph Woodhouse, a Liverpool merchant whose father had developed the Marsala wine trade. Woodhouse had operated red-herring curing-houses in the Isle of Man, which he later sold, and it is likely that Joseph Gill was an employee of his, handling correspondence with Italian merchants. William Henry Gill (Figure 1), born 24 October 1839 in Palermo, was one of six children. (4) He followed two sisters, Emma Jane (b. 1836) and Charlotte (b. 1838), and was followed in turn by his brothers John Frederick (b. 1842), Robert (birth date unknown), and George (b. 1849). William Henry and John Frederick were educated in the Isle of Man, lodging with their uncle, the Rev. William Gill, vicar of Malew. They attended King William's College, the Isle of Man's public school, just outside of the old capital of Castletown. [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] William Henry entered King William's College in January 1850 and left as a Leaving Exhibitioner in March 1858. He then joined the civil service in London, spending his working life at the General Post Office and ending his days in the chief secretary's office. …
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