Lucy Broadwood
Lucy Broadwood
(1858 –1929)
Lucy Broadwood was born in Scotland, into the famous piano manufacturing family. She was the youngest of eleven siblings. Lucy was aware of folk music from an early age, her Uncle John Broadwood having published a collection of songs from the Sussex Weald in the 1840s. She recalled that her earliest musical memory was of her father singing The Wee Little Croodin’ Doo, a variant of the Child Ballad Lord Randal: "The first musical impression that I ever remember came from this song, sung by my father as I sat astride his knee when little more than two years old." Her father was a great influence on her, and after his death in 1893 she moved to London.
Her work as a collector began in the late 1880s. She collected from across the country, including the Scottish Highlands in 1908-1909. Here she collected Gaelic songs using the phonograph, an innovative method for the time. Lucy collected from twenty-two named singers during a twenty-five year period, including the formidable Horsham shoemaker, Henry Burstow of Horsham, in Sussex, from whom Vaughan Williams also noted songs.
Her interest in folk song led her to help form the Folk-Song Society in 1898, becoming Secretary from 1904 to 1909 and editing its Journal from 1904 to 1910 and in 1914. She was elected President of the Society in 1928, the year before her death and was also highly involved in the Leith Hill Musical Festival in Surrey, as a member of the music committee from 1905 to 1929 and a principal guest in 1913.
Lucy was also heavily involved in the Early Music movement. She was a member of the Purcell Society and helped edit Purcell’s work. Through this association and distant family links, she became acquainted with J.A. Fuller Maitland (1856–1936), a music critic and musician. Her enduring friendship and collaboration with him resulted in her work on Sussex Songs and in 1893 the acclaimed folksong collection English County Songs.
Her other principal publication was English Traditional Carols and Songs, 1908. The songs were collected and arranged by her and most were from Henry Burstow.
Lucy Broadwood was a forward thinking, independent woman who carved her own path as an accomplished performer, accompanist, composer and poet, and as a champion of young musicians. Composers such as Percy Grainger, Graham Peel and the English baritone James Campbell McInnes have Lucy to thank for their enduring recognition. Today Lucy is remembered every 1 May where Broadwood Morris side of Horsham dance in tribute inside the church at Rusper where she is buried.
Lucy Broadwood’s manuscripts of songs and broadsides are housed at the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, London. They principally cover the period 1839-1921 and Southern England and Lincolnshire.
Browse Lucy Broadwood's collection in The Full English digital archive.
