University of Sheffield Library. Special Collections and Archives Ref: MS 383 Title: Hudleston Collection Scope: A large collection of material collected by Nigel and Mary Hudleston reflecting their interest in folk songs, calendar customs, folklore and traditional drama and dance, including sound recordings, notes, newspaper cuttings, photographs, cine film and colour slides. Dates: 1816-2003 Level: Fonds Extent: 50 boxes Name of creator: Nigel and Mary Hudleston Administrative / biographical history: Nigel and Mary Hudleston collected original recordings of folk songs from Yorkshire and Ireland in the 1950s and 1960s: Songs of the Ridings – a collection of Yorkshire folk songs – was published in 2001 after Mary Hudleston’s death. It is for their interest in Yorkshire songs that the Hudlestons are best known, and newspaper articles and a BBC Radio 4 programme have concentrated on this aspect of their work. However, the Hudleston Collection contains not just their field recordings and notes, but also newspaper cuttings, cine film, photographs, and almost 4,000 colour slides recording folklore, calendar customs, and traditional drama and dance. The Collection also includes 37 pottery figures depicting characters from folklore and calendar custom commissioned by the Hudlestons and created by Monica Devey. Nigel Hudleston was born in 1915 into a landowning family and spent his childhood at Rillington, near Malton in North Yorkshire. He graduated with a B.A. from Trinity College Cambridge and inherited Cayton Hall, at South Stainley near Harrogate, in 1943. He moved in during the 1960s, after he married Mary (Robinson), the daughter of a Wharfedale farmer. Nigel Hudleston died in December 2006 at the age of 91. In the 1940s, Mary Robinson (born in 1918) had set up a project to collect folk songs while she was working as an infant school teacher in Bradford. Nigel Hudleston was taken on as a male chaperon for her visits to record folk singers in pubs. For over 20 years, the couple travelled throughout Yorkshire and beyond, recording local folk songs and singers, but also collecting material relating to many other local customs and activities. Mary Hudleston died in 1986. The collection was donated to the National Centre for English Cultural Tradition at the University of Sheffield in 2001, and transferred to the Special Collections Department in the University Library in 2008. Source: Donated in 2001 System of arrangement: By category Subjects: Folk songs, English – England – Yorkshire; Folklore – England; Folklore – Ireland Names: Hudleston, N.A.; Hudleston, Mary; Devey, Monica 1 11/06/20 Conditions of access: Available to all researchers, by appointment Restrictions: None Copyright: University of Sheffield and according to document Finding aids: Listed 2 11/06/20 01-002 Hudleston Collection (MS 383) Contents 01-002/1 Folk songs 01-002/2 Folk dance 01-002/3 Folk plays & obsolete calendar customs 01-002/4 Folk lore 01-002/5 Calendar customs 01-002/6 Gypsy material 01-002/7 Irish material 01-002/8 Slides 01-002/9 Tapes 01-002/10 Miscellaneous 01-002/11 Pottery figures, etc. 01-002/12 Published works 01-002/13 Films Photographs are catalogued and located within the appropriate section, but are also listed separately at the end of the catalogue 3 11/06/20 01-002/1 Folk songs 1/1 Hudleston’s articles, publications, CVs, etc. 1/1/1 Songs of the Ridings, including notes, appendices, indexes 1/1/1/1 Preface to Songs of the Ridings, or the Yorkshire Musical Museum. 4 l. Ts. with ms. annotations 1/1/1/2 Spiral bound copy of Songs of the Ridings: The Yorkshire Musical Museum (2001). 348 pages. Printed 1/1/1/3 “Mr. Hudleston - Folk Book Master Index”. Numbered list of songs with names of those who reported them to NAH. 2 l. Ts. 1/1/2 Correspondence relating to gramophone record produced by the Hudlestons in 1962, 7 Jan 1960-11 Jul 1968 and undated. 134 items. Ts. & ms. Note on original envelope in NAH’s hand: “Made after 24.2.62/by 5.5.62 by Excel Services, 4 Bradford Road, Shipley (Thistlethwaite). All disposed of by 17.3.64” 1/1/3 Newspaper articles by or about the Hudlestons 1/1/3/1 Article by NAH & MH, “Old Grimey and all that: recording the folk songs of Yorkshire”, Yorkshire Post 26 May 1962. Printed. 8 copies 1/1/4 Hudleston CVs and history 1/1/4/1 CV for NAH & MH. Ts. 1 l. 1/1/4/2 CV for MH. Ts. 2 l. 1/1/5 Newspapers, magazines, cuttings, postcards. 240 items. Printed 1/1/6 Books and extracts, posters 1/1/6/1 Traditional songs of the Calder Valley, collected and compiled by Angela B.A. Skipper (Published by Leisure Services Department, Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale, [1987]). 28 pp. Printed 1/1/6/2 Green notebook labelled “Copies taken from Kidson MSS copyright. Mitchell Library Glasgow”. Ms. 12 pages written on. 1/1/6/3 A Musical calendar of festivals: folk songs of feast-days and holidays from around the world, chosen by Barbara Cass-Beggs (London: ward Lock Educational, 1983). 112 pp. Printed 1/1/6/4 Three traditional Yorkshire songs, arranged with piano accompaniments by Frank Wade (London: Alfred Lengnick & Co. Ltd., [1950]). 4 pp. Printed 1/1/6/5 The Handy songster. 6 pp. Printed 1/1/6/6 Two posters produced by Black Bull, Church Street, Whitby, bearing song lyrics: a) “Cowd stringy pie” b) “Fare thee well” 1/1/6/7 Two pages of Patriotic collection of songs of the Empire. Printed 4 11/06/20 1/1/6/8 5 pages of The Flower of England song book of old English songs. Printed 1/1/6/9 “Notes on the twelve Apostles (Green grow the rushes ) from English county songs by Lucy E. Broadwood & J.A. Fuller Maitland. 1 l. Ts. 1/1/6/10 “Spanish folk song”. (Extracts from The singing of the travels by Violet Alford). 7 l. Ts. 1/1/6/11 A list of books for the study of English folk song, issued by the E.F.D.S.S. 4 l. Printed 1/1/6/12 ‘Entends-tu, Michaud, Ho!’ inside flier for Anthologie de la chanson de Haute Bretagne, Simone Morand. 1 l. Printed 1/2 Hudleston correspondence 1/2/1 EFDSS. 1952-1992 and undated Letters, photographs, etc. 36 items. Printed, ts., ms. 1/2/2 Harvard. Correspondence between Hudlestons and Dr. John Ward of the Department of Music at Harvard University, relating to Yorkshire folk songs and dances. Also between NAH and Dr. Anne Dhu Shapiro, formerly of Harvard. 1967-1994. 33 items. Ts. & ms. 1/2/3 Other correspondence. 1952-1999 and undated. 66 items. Ts. & ms. 1/2/4 List of contacts and addresses a) Small notebook with singers’ contact details and some repertoires. 15 pages written on. Ms. b) Single sheet with names and addresses. 1 l. Ms. 1/3 Harvard 1/3/1 Transcriptions 1/3/1/1 Originally labelled as “Complete set of original Harvard and Harvard Wood transcriptions”: a) Harvard. “Transcriptions of almost everything on the Mary and Nigel Hudleston tapes of Yorkshire traditional and other types of song made by first-year graduate students in Harmusicology, at Harvard University, during the years 1972, 1974 and 1979”. 195 l. Photocopies b) Harvard Wood. “Transcriptions of Arthur Wood’s songs and ballads, made by Aaron Fox, at the time a senior at Harvard University, commissioned by me [John Ward?] and instructed to include as much of Wood’s performance as staff notation would permit”. 86 l. Photocopies 1/3/1/2 “Harvard transcription of A. Wood, in order and indexed”. As 1/3/1/1b plus ‘Spencer the Rover’, ‘A Sailor’s Grave’ and ‘Hung, but not for Sheep-stealing’ and minus ‘The Banks of Inverness’. 92 l. Photocopies 5 11/06/20 1/3/1/3 “Harvard transcriptions of A. Wood complete copies”. Various lists but just 4 scores - ‘The faithless lover’, ‘Waterhouse Lane’, The sailor’s farewell’, ‘My little fiddle’. 14 l. Photocopies 1/3/2 Correspondence from Arthur and Ada Wood. 1958-1967. 32 items. Ms. 1/3/3 Copies of most scores and lyrics from the Harvard list (1/3/1/1a). 297 l. Photocopies 1/4 Songs 1/4/1 Farming, farm animals, the land 1/4/1/1 Tunes & lyrics a) “1958 folk songs sung by Mrs. Wilson, Wyke school cleaner, sung at 25 Duckworth Terrace, Bradford”: ‘Old John Argate’, ‘Owd Martha Gomersal’, ‘John, John, or down the valley’. 6 l. Ts. & ms. b) “Songs from Dick Horner of Burton Leonard with rudimentary 1958 tunes”: ‘Country Gawby’. 13 l. Ts., ms. and photocopies. c) ‘The Derby Ram’. 2 l. Printed, ts. & ms. 1/4/1/2 Tunes a) ‘Beautiful Swaledale’. 1 l. Ms. 1/4/1/3 Lyrics a) ‘Country Gawby’. 4 l. Ms. b) ‘Wensleydale’. 2 l. Ms. c) Alternative versions of ‘Wibsey Fair’/‘Leeds Fair’. 6 l. Printed, ts. & ms. d) ‘The oak and the ivy’, from Yorkshire anthology. 1 l. Photocopy e) ‘The Wensleydale lad’, from Holroyd’s collection of Yorkshire ballads. 2 l. Photocopy f) ‘The sun had set behind yon hill’. From J.T. Horner, Swinithwaite. 2 l. Ms. 1/4/1/4 Other references a) ‘My father bought an acre of land’. Correspondence, tunes and lyrics. 11 l. Ts. & ms. 1/4/2 Work and industry 1/4/2/1 Tunes & lyrics Nothing 1/4/2/2 Tunes Nothing 1/4/2/3 Lyrics a) ‘Sandstone girl’. Alternative lyrics from Mrs. M. Tyzeman, Lythe, Whitby. 2 l. Ms. b) ‘Some to doff...’. From Mr. Fred Brown, Huddersfield.