Mary Neal & Women's Morris

by John Maher

In September 1906 Cecil Sharp was asked by Mary Neal to teach some suitable folk songs to the girls of a club in St. Pancras. Every year the Esperance girls club had performed a cantata at Christmas time,to which they invited their friends, the rehearsals helped to keep the girls happy during the winter evenings. An article in the 'Morning Post'had brought English folk songs to Mary Neal's attention, and she went along to see Cecil Sharp to ask his advice. "... in ten minutes we were deep in the subject of Folk Song, and I was told that I should be surprised at the way in which English boys and girls would understand and appreciate their own Folk music. 'They will learn it' said Mr..Sharp, 'by a sort of spiritual sixth sense ... I went away having made up my mind to the experiment, although I confess that the music looked to my inexperience very difficult. In a fortnight I wrote to Mr.Sharp telling him that I could only express the results of the first few lessons by saying that the Club had gone mad, that they were perfectly intoxicated with the music."

The club was also interested in dancing, and had tried Scottish dances- reels and strathspeys, and one winter had practiced Irish jigs and reels, so that it was not surprising that the Club soon started looking for English folk dances to go alongside of the songs. Mary Neal found out about morris dancing and invited two of the Headington dancers to come along and teach ftlem some dances (one of these was William Kimber). The girls learned the dances rapidly. They sang the songs and danced the dances at their Christmas party in 1905. This event was so successful that they were urged to give a public performance, in April a concert was given in the Small Queen's Hall in London. The Concert too was very successful.. the 'Daily Chronicle' reported.."A little entertainment which may indeed light such a candle in England as will not immediately be put out." Cecil Sharp lectured at this concert, some singing games were also performed - collected by Lady Gomme. So began a landslide.

Herbert MacIlwaine was the musical director of the Experance Club when Cecil Sharp met Mary Neal. A collaboration resulted from the meetings, and as a result Cecil Sharp and Herbert MacIlwaine publi shed "The Morris Book", Part I in July 1907 and Part II in July 1909.

The Esperance Club began to give public performances of the morris and of folk songs and games. They travelled far and wide ; they taught in girls clubs, bciys clubs, schools, polytechnics and to many private individuals; they travelled around L~Dndon to Barnet, Haslemere, Maidenhead and Reading, and further afield up to Yorkshire and out into Norfolk . In Norfolk they met I Florrie I Warren who was attracted to become a chief instructress for the Esperance Club. By 1910 Mary Neal claimed that there were only two countieg in which the Esperance girls had not demonstrated and taught the dances, songs and games.

Whilst Cecil Sharp was not officially connected to the club, he often collaborated by lecturing at the performances.

On 14th November 1907 Mary Neal decided to call a meeting "to talk over plans for putting at the service of all who wish for it, this great possession of English folk music in which it has been our good fortune to be the means of reviving active interest."

Cecil Sharp attended the meeting, but did not become associated with the organi8ation which became known as the "Association for the Revival and Practice of Folk Music". Both he and Mary Neal seem to have agreed that the actual cobecting of the dances would not be a function of the Association. "What we propose to do is to facilitate the use and practice of folk music by the younger generation, and it is because we have already done this so successfully in connection with the Experance Working Girls Club, which has carried these dances all over England, that we have foundit necessary to form an association for carrying on the work." (Mary Neal in a letter to the Saturday Review, 11.4.1908).

A disagreement between Cecil Sharp and Mary Neal came about gradually - he being somewhat worried about the standard of dancing and teaching of the Esperance girls, and keen to uphold what he felt were artistic standards. She evidently felt that he was too pedantic on the subject and was more interested in the songs and dances as a source of amusement and happiness for her girls and for others. Despite efforts on their parts and by mutual friends to get the collaboration going again, this did not come about and matters went from bad to worse. The Board of Education's Physical Education syllabus was revised in 1909 to allow the inclusion of morris dances, so there was a pressing need for teachers if the dances were to be passed on. Moreover, it would also be necessary that the teachers should not be mere book theoreticians. In 1909 a School of Morris dancing was established in Chelsea Physical Training College (since moved to Eastbourne, Sussex). Cecil Sharp was appointed as Director and given a free hand with the teaching of the dances. From now on he used College students for his demonstrations ana lectures. At the end of 1911 the formation of the English Folk Dance Society was proposed by Cecil Sharp and came into being after a meeting; in December 1912 a side of men dancers from the Society performed at the Savoy Theatre.

In 1910 Mary Neal published "The Esperance Morris Book". This contains some descriptions of the dances,songs and games known to the girls of the Esperance Club. From the point of view of the present interest in ladies morris the costumes shown in the photographs in the book are of considerable interest. Her descriptions of her philosophy and interest in the dances, and the introduction to the book read in a decidedly twee fashion. However, some of the other comments are most interesting, for instance her description of how she came across the Abingdon dancers:

I was speaking at a very out-of-the-way village when a young man, who had sung a folk-song as part of theevening's entertainment, asked me if I had ever heard of a dance danced in a certain small town in Berkshire and which had as part of its regalia two horns mounted on a pole. I said 'No' and asked for the address of the family said to be the 'xeepers of the old tradition. This I got, and wrote off to the oldest member of the family. The reply was delightful. It began :- 'Honourable and respected Miss, I am that party which has the old dances, and I shall be proud to show them to you. Yours to command.' I found out, however, that tie old man could neither read nor write, but had deputed a friend to write. This in itsel f is a r ecommendatiori in the exponent of folk art- largely a lost art in these days of compulsory education.

After letters exchanged, my friend Mrs.Tuke and I arrived in the town to find the old man waiting at the station. We had a sort of triumphal march through the town, he being greeted from one and another with evident interest. I learned later in the day that the town had considered my letters a hoax, and that the meaning of the old man's evident pleasure in walking through the town with one of us on either side of him was in effect saying 'You see, the ladies have come after all, they are no hoax'. He conducted us to a room in a small inn which he had secured for us, and then the fun began t He was a little nervous and not a little forgetful, and the concertina which he played not very satisfactory. Whenever he forgot the tune he told us the note was missing in his instrument. Later, in London, when he came to the Experance Club, I got him three more concertinas and they had a way of getting damp every now and then when he put them in the fender to warm. In the end, however, we got the tunes by dint of patience and making him feel at home with us. When he came to town he brought'with him his 'young brother', a grey-bearded man, wonderfully agile on his feet, who very soon had our girls dancing the dances he knew.

'They do step it well, miss' he told me, 11 never saw a man step better'.

The learning of a new morris is an interesting sight. The tune having been taken down, is played on the piano, the old men marshall six girls into to the middle of the room; there is a babel of voice s ' everyone seems to be pushing everyone into her place. The piano stops, a committee is held, all talking at once. The pianist turns to me in despair. 'They'll never get the dance, they can't understand the old man's broad Berkshire dialect, it's no use.' 'It's all right', I reply,lyou wait, I've seen all this sort of thing before: in twenty minutes they will have got it.' And sure enough in less than that 'Sally Luker' is going merrily and to the eniire satis- faction of the teachers."

The Abingdon tunes and dances given in Mary Neal's book are 'The Girl I Left Behind Me'( Morris On),'Princes Royall,'Sally Lukerl,'A-Nutting we will go.

Finally on the subject of dress, for men she had the following comment: "... the more colour that can be introduced into the dress the better,as in the old days there was a rivalry amongst the women as to who could send her man out to dance the morris decked in the brightest colours." She goes on to describe a costume which is related to the Bidford men's dress (cf.Bristol 600 edition of Folk News, Summer 1973). It seems worth quoting her comments about the dress for girls and women: "As there is no traditional dress for women morris dancers, I will describe that which has been made popular by the Experance girls, and the first idea of which was given to me by friends at Haslemere. The girls should be dressed in bright-coloured cotton frocks. The bodices should be tight fitting, and the skirts gathered or pleate.d on to them, only, however, allowing enough fulness to-hang comfortably when dancing. The skirts should well clear the ankles, and the dancers should be encouraged to have very little starch in frocks or petticoats. The stockings, as the men's, should be blue-gtey, and the shoes stout and easy, and, where possible, ornamented with plain steel buckles. Muslin aprons and fichus, white collars and cuffs may be added to make variety. I think there should be as much difference as possible in the colours of the dresses and little changes of make, so long as simple lines are observed, because, as the idea is a village festival on a village green at holiday time, of course, no two people would be dressed alike, and I do not myself like the dresses which I have seen at different performances where the children were all dressed rigidly alike, however pretty the costume was, so that any variation in the dress of men or women is, I think, an advan- tage. One man, for instance, might have his shirt gaily decorated with loops of coloured ribbon, even when the others keep to be-ribboned braces. The dress of the fool also makes a good variety, and may be worn by one of the dancers of either sex. We have generally adopted a straight down dress of a bright orange brown, scalloped round the edges, with a bell at the end of each scallop, and a cap all in one with it, fitting tight over the head, with holes for the ears, and two horns made of the same stuff padded with cotton wool, and a bell at the end of each. The fool's dress may also be made of a tunic of dark spotted print with a frill of some bright spotted material, and a cap very much the shape of a small tea- cosey, covered all over with odds and ends of ribbon, artificial flowers, and bits of feather. The fool always carries a short stick, at one end of which is a cow's tail, and at the other end a bladder, which is blown out, and with which he flicks and whacks the dancers as the spirit of fun takes him. The girls should wear a cottage sun-bonnet made of print, either of the same colour as the dress, or of a colour which harmonises with the dress. I have found a very pretty effect for a fair girl in an apple green dress, with a pink sun-bonnet, a pale blue dress with a deep violet sun-bonnet, a bright blue dress with a white sun-bonnet, and so on, and for dark girls nothing looks so charming as a good scarlet or crimson dress and bonnet with a white fichu arrangement. The girls should wear a strip of elastic round the ankles on which bells are sewn.

The arguments between Mary Neal and Cecil Sharp and their respective followers have echoed down through the years, and the philosophies represented by these are in a sense at the root of many of the present day arguments about how 'Folk' should be promoted ( if indeed it should at all). In our next magazine, apart from dealing with present day trends in the folk world - particularly electric folk, we hope to present some peoples opinions on the subject.

The book ' Cecil Sharp t by A.H.Fox Strangeways ( in collaboration with Maud Karpeles ) is available at the public library and provides a background to this article. Mary Neal's book is a rarity.

NOTE added 2009: There are two editions of the Fox Strangeways biography; the first edition 1933, the 2nd edition 1955. Fox Strangeways died in 1944, so the preparation of the 2nd edition was done by Karpeles.
The Esperance Morris Book, by Mary Neal appeared in two parts, part 1 in 1910, part 2 in 1912. Published by Curwen.