The Full English
Unlocking hidden treasures of England's cultural heritage
A ground-breaking nationwide digital archive and learning project
With the launch of The Full English in 2014, the English Folk Dance and Song Society and its partners presented the world’s largest online collection of English folk manuscripts.
The Full English is possibly the most exciting and significant thing to happen to British folk music in at least a generation… To give everyone the keys to the archive of our common heritage will be an invaluable inspiration to generations of musicians and writers.
Lee Hall, playwright and screenwriter (Billy Elliot, Pitman Painters, War Horse)
Now everyone can freely explore 80,000 pages of traditional songs, dances, tunes and customs from the golden age of folk music collecting, within the manuscripts of nineteen of England’s most important late Victorian and Edwardian folk collectors, including Ralph Vaughan Williams, Percy Grainger, Lucy Broadwood and Cecil Sharp.
The Full English digital archive – now incorporated within the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library’s online archives – delivers the true ‘voice of the people’ through a variety of material ranging from full songs to fragments of melodies – invaluable for researchers, performers, composers and many more. It is rich in social, family and local history, and provides a snapshot of England’s cultural heritage through voices rarely published and heard before.
The Full English Extra saw the collections of Mary Neal (suffragette, radical arts practitioner and founder of the Esperance Girls Club) and folk dance educator Daisy Caroline Daking added to the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library online archive, alongside its collection of 19th-century broadside ballads and songsters. EFDSS worked with three national museums – the Museum of English Rural Life at the University of Reading, the National Coal Mining Museum for England near Wakefield in Yorkshire and the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London – combining folk arts and museum education to provide powerful new learning experiences for schools.
The Full English cultural partners
Cambridge City Council
Cambridgeshire Music
Clare College, Cambridge
Cecil Sharp House
Colston Hall
Lincoln Drill Hall
mac birmingham
Opera North
Sound Connections
soundLINCS
The British Library
The Met
Sage Gateshead
The Stables
The University of Sheffield
The Full English archive partners
Clare College, Cambridge
The British Library
The Folklore Society Library and Archive, University College London
The Grainger Museum, University of Melbourne
The Mitchell Library, Glasgow
Vaughan Williams Memorial Library
Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre
The Full English additional partners
Blaize
Bristol Plays Music
Folklore Society
Heritage Lottery Fund
The Museum of Cambridge
National Coal Mining Museum
National Folk Music Fund
The University of Sheffield
The Full English Extra partners
Museum of English Rural Life at Reading University
National Coal Mining Museum for England, Yorkshire
National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
The Full English Extra additional partners
Wakefield Music Education Hub
The Full English was supported by the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund, with additional funding from the National Folk Music Fund, The Folklore Society, and individual donations.
The wonderful thing about folk music is that it comes from somewhere, and it gives people who come from that place a sense of belonging. This project is a lovely reminder of that, and it has been a privilege to see a light come in the eyes of these students as you help them discover the riches that lie hidden in the “lost world” of folk music around them
John Kirkpatrick, The Full English learning programme artist
Learning programmes
The Full English was a national programme of workshops, lectures, training and community events in nine regions of England.
Case Studies PDF | Evaluation Report PDF
The Full English Extra learning programme inspired learning with folk music, dance and drama, in partnership with three national museums around England.
Case Studies, Outcomes and Resources PDF
Video resources
Primary Schools Playlist, The Full English
Secondary Schools Playlist, The Full English
Complete Playlist, The Full English
Complete Playlist, The Full English Extra
National Showcase Conference
Over 500 school children and their teachers, 85 delegates and 40 artists and trainees attended this day at BirminghamTown Hall on 25 June 2014. The From Archives to Action! event collected together many who had been working on The Full English learning programme for a day of discussion, presentations and showcase performances.
The Full English… surpassed my expectations. It reached across the curriculum. It improved the standard of imaginative writing. It prompted us to start a community band. And it definitely deepened the children’s love of history
Ben Stephenson, Headteacher, Marton Primary School
