George Barnet Gardiner
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George Barnet Gardiner (1852 – 1910) was a
Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...
-born
folk-song Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has be ...
collector who collected songs from traditional singers in Southern England, chiefly in Hampshire, but also in Surrey, Sussex, Somerset and other counties. He collected over 1,400 songs in a six-year period between 1904 and his death in 1910.


Biography


Early life, education and career

Gardiner was born in
Kincardine-on-Forth Kincardine ( ; gd, Cinn Chàrdainn) or Kincardine-on-Forth is a small town on the north shore of the Firth of Forth, in Fife, Scotland. The town was given the status of a burgh of barony in 1663. It was at one time a reasonably prosperous mi ...
,
Fife Fife (, ; gd, Fìobha, ; sco, Fife) is a council area, historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries with Perth and Kinross (i ...
, Scotland. He studied classical subjects at the
University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...
and after graduating became an assistant there. From 1883 he taught at
Edinburgh Academy The Edinburgh Academy is an Independent school (United Kingdom), independent day school in Edinburgh, Scotland, which was opened in 1824. The original building, on Henderson Row in the city's New Town, Edinburgh, New Town, is now part of the Se ...
, where he met and formed a friendship with fellow teacher
Henry Edward Denison Hammond Henry may refer to: People * Henry (given name) * Henry (surname) * Henry Lau, Canadian singer and musician who performs under the mononym Henry Royalty * Portuguese royalty ** King-Cardinal Henry, King of Portugal ** Henry, Count of Portuga ...
, with whom he shared an interest in folk song. He retired in 1896 to translate and write textbooks.Purslow, F; Marrowbones, ''English Folk Songs from the Hammond and Gardiner Collections''; London; 2007 pp. xvi-xvii


Folk song collecting

In 1903, he began a "systematic study" of European folk song, building up a large collection of songs and learning songs in many different languages. He learned of and joined the
Folk Song Society The English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS, or pronounced 'EFF-diss') is an organisation that promotes English folk music and folk dance. EFDSS was formed in 1932 when two organisations merged: the Folk-Song Society and the English Folk Dan ...
, and read the six issues of their Journal published up to that time, writing later "In these volumes I at last found what I wanted - a body of nameless, hereditary songs of the people...." Gardiner began collecting in 1904, probably with H. E. D. Hammond, in the Bath area of Somerset near the Hammond family home, collecting 20 songs. He wasn't confident of his ability to record tunes accurately so his practice was to collect the text himself and to get a colleague to note down the tune, often some time later. In 1905 he collected some songs from the area around Launceston in North Cornwall, and in Somerset, but then on the suggestion of
Lucy Broadwood Lucy Etheldred Broadwood (9 August 1858 – 22 August 1929) was an English folksong collector and researcher, and great-granddaughter of John Broadwood, founder of the piano manufacturers Broadwood and Sons. As one of the founder members of the Fo ...
. secretary of the English Folk Song Society, switched his attention to Hampshire. With the help of the composer
Balfour Gardiner Henry Balfour Gardiner (7 November 1877 – 28 June 1950) was a British musician, composer, and teacher. He was born at Kensington (London), began to play at the age of 5 and to compose at 9. Between his conventional education at Charterhouse ...
(not a relation) to note the tunes, he collected 60 songs in the area to the east and south of Winchester in June 1905, but soon found that the intensely busy times of hay making and harvesting made collecting from country singers difficult. In early 1906 Gardiner and H. E. D. Hammond collected around 100 songs from the Bath area of Somerset, and Gardiner then returned to Hampshire. This time he was assisted by Charles Gamblin and John Fisher Guyer, and, when hay-making commenced, collected from the
workhouse In Britain, a workhouse () was an institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment. (In Scotland, they were usually known as poorhouses.) The earliest known use of the term ''workhouse'' ...
s, whose elderly occupants were always on tap. By November 1907 he and his colleagues had collected another 890 songs. He was in the habit of finding and collecting texts from his singers and then arranging for his colleagues to visit to note down the tunes, and gradually he got further and further ahead of them, so that on some occasions his often elderly informants had died or moved before the tune-takers visited them. He also got behind in writing up his notes, so that by the time he died he had collected around 1400 songs but had written up only 800. He continued collecting in 1908, and possibly 1909, mainly in Hampshire but with forays into the neighbouring counties of Surrey, Sussex, and Wiltshire.


Death

In 1910, Gardiner died of kidney failure and was buried in Edinburgh.


Legacy

In June 1909, an issue of the ''Journal of the Folk Song Society'' (Vol. 3, No. 13) included 45 songs collected by Gardiner, with a brief introduction by him. In the same year 16 songs were published as Book III of the series "Folk Songs of England" edited by
Cecil Sharp Cecil James Sharp (22 November 1859 – 23 June 1924) was an English-born collector of folk songs, folk dances and instrumental music, as well as a lecturer, teacher, composer and musician. He was the pre-eminent activist in the development of t ...
. After Gardiner's death his notebooks and the music manuscripts of his collaborators came into the possession of the Folk Song Society. Due to misunderstandings arising from the way Gardiner's songs were presented in the Journal, several of the songs he collected have been mistakenly attributed to
Ralph Vaughan Williams Ralph Vaughan Williams, (; 12 October 1872– 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over ...
in, for example, ''The Penguin Book of English Folk Songs'', ''Folk Songs collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams'' and ''The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads''. In 1965 the EFDSS published "Marrow Bones", a compilation of songs from the Gardiner and Hammond collections edited by Frank Parslow. Three more books followed - "The Wanton Seed" (1968), "The Constant Lovers (1972) and "The Foggy Dew" (1974). In total these books contained 202 songs collected by Gardiner. The Marrow Bone series was an important source of material for English folk musicians, and has recently been revised and reprinted in three books.Purslow, F (ed); The Wanton Seed, London; 2017Purlsow F (ed); Southern Harvest; London; 2017


References


External links


Journal of the Folk Song Society (Vol. 3, No. 13)Folk Songs of England Book III, Songs From Hampshire
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gardiner, George 1852 births 1910 deaths British folk-song collectors People from Kincardine, Fife