Sir George Laurence Gomme, FSA (18 December 1853 – 23 February 1916) was a public servant and leading British folklorist. He helped found both the

Victoria County History The Victoria History of the Counties of England, commonly known as the Victoria County History or the VCH, is an English history project which began in 1899 with the aim of creating an encyclopaedic history of each of the historic counties of En ...

and the

Folklore Society The Folklore Society (FLS) is a national association in the United Kingdom for the study of folklore. It was founded in London in 1878 to study traditional vernacular culture, including traditional music, song, dance and drama, narrative, arts an ...

. He also had an interest in old buildings and persuaded the

London County Council London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today kno ...

to take up the

blue plaque A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the United Kingdom and elsewhere to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving as a historical marker. The term i ...

commemorative scheme.

Life

Gomme was born in the London district of

Stepney Stepney is a district in the East End of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The district is no longer officially defined, and is usually used to refer to a relatively small area. However, for much of its history the place name appl ...

, the second of ten children of William Laurence Gomme (1828–1887), an engineer, and his wife Mary (1831–1921). He attended the

City of London School , established = , closed = , type = Public school Boys' independent day school , president = , head_label = Headmaster , head = Alan Bird , chair_label = Chair of Governors , chair = Ian Seaton , founder = John Carpenter , speciali ...

to the age of sixteen, when he started work, first with a railway company, then with the

Fulham Fulham () is an area of the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham in West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, bordering Hammersmith, Kensington and Chelsea. The area faces Wandsworth ...

board of works, finally, in 1873, with the

Metropolitan Board of Works The Metropolitan Board of Works (MBW) was the principal instrument of local government in a wide area of Middlesex, Surrey, and Kent, defined by the Metropolis Management Act 1855, from December 1855 until the establishment of the London Cou ...

: he remained with it and its successor, the London County Council, until his retirement in 1914. His position as statistical officer, from 1893, and then as clerk to the council, from 1900, gave him a major role in policy and administration. His interests included folklore and history. The former he shared with his wife Alice Bertha Gomme, born Alice Merck (1853–1938), whom he married on 31 March 1875. The couple had seven sons, including Arthur Allan Gomme, a librarian and historian of technology, and

Arnold Wycombe Gomme Arnold Wycombe Gomme (16 November 1886 – 17 January 1959) was a British classical scholar, lecturer in ancient Greek and Greek history (1911–1945), professor of ancient Greek, University of Glasgow (1946–1957), Fellow of the British Academy ...

, a noted classical scholar. Both Gomme and his wife were founder members of the Folklore Society in 1878; and Gomme went on to be its honorary secretary, director and president. Gomme wrote many books and articles on folklore, including ''Primitive Folk Moots'' (1880), ''Folklore Relics of Early Village Life'' (1883), ''Ethnology in Folklore'' (1892) and ''Folklore as a Historical Science'' (1908). His work in the field is now generally regarded as too dependent on a survivals theory, which tried to trace folk customs back to earlier stages of civilisation; but it retains value as a collection. His historical writings show a particular interest in the history of London, in books such as ''The Governance of London'' (1907) and ''The Making of London'' (1912). He was also one of the founders of the ''

'' project, and had a passion for old buildings. He used his council position to protect threatened buildings and to advance the

Survey of London The Survey of London is a research project to produce a comprehensive architectural survey of central London and its suburbs, or the area formerly administered by the London County Council. It was founded in 1894 by Charles Robert Ashbee, an A ...

, to which he also contributed historical material. Another overlap of his historical and professional interests was the blue plaque commemorative scheme, which he persuaded the council to take on in 1901: the 800th blue plaque to be awarded would later mark his own London residence in 24

Dorset Square Dorset Square is a garden square in Marylebone, London. All buildings fronting it are terraced houses and listed, in the mainstream (initial) category. It takes up the site of Lord's (MCC's) Old Cricket Ground, which lasted 23 years until the ...

. He was knighted in 1911. Not long afterwards, in 1914, ill health caused him to retire early; and he died of

pernicious anemia Pernicious anemia is a type of vitamin B12 deficiency anemia, a disease in which not enough red blood cells are produced due to the malabsorption of vitamin B12. Malabsorption in pernicious anemia results from the lack or loss of intrinsic fa ...

on 23 February 1916 at his country home in

Long Crendon Long Crendon is a village and civil parish in west Buckinghamshire, England, about west of Haddenham and north-west of Thame in neighbouring Oxfordshire. The village has been called Long Crendon only since the English Civil War.Birch, 197 ...

, Buckinghamshire.Gomme (2004).

Notes

References

*Alice Bertha Gomme, "Bibliography of the Writings of the Late Sir Laurence Gomme on Anthropology and Folklore", ''Folklore'' 27 (1916), 408–13 *Robert Gomme, "Gomme, Sir (George) Laurence (1853–1916)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford: OUP, 200
subscription needed
(online version accessed 6 Dec 2008) *Jacqueline Simpson and Steve Roud, "Gomme, George Laurence", ''A Dictionary of English Folklore'', Oxford: OUP 2000, 149–50. .

External links

* * * Clodd, Edward, " Sir George Laurence Gomme", ''Folk-Lore'', Volume 27 (1916) pp. 111–112
Founder of VCH honoured with 800th Blue Plaque
Victoria County History news release on Gomme's blue plaque
English Heritage Celebrates 800th Blue Plaque
English Heritage news release on Gomme's blue plaque {{DEFAULTSORT:Gomme, Laurence English folklorists People from Stepney Deaths from pernicious anemia Knights Bachelor 1853 births 1916 deaths Presidents of the Folklore Society