Diary for 1900-1919

Abingdon Morris Dancing 1900-1919

1.  The end of the dancing at the June Fair

The parading of the Ock Street Horns and associated morris dancing at the time of the Abingdon June Fair seems to have stopped around 1900-1901, as these press extracts would suggest:

Abingdon Herald 23rd June 1900 p5

ABINGDON

Notes of the week

From time immemorial – to use an exaggerated phrase indicating a long time – June Fair has been associated with much more than the buying and selling of horses. It is one of the “landmarks” of the year in Ock-street, but a great many associations, some good and some bad, have been dropped with other events of the “old order.” A diet of bacon and gooseberry pie used to be in vogue at the west end on the 20th of June, but probably that fare is no longer unanimously adopted. Mayor-choosing and morris-dancing were regular institutions, intermittently revived in late years. This year the “Ock-street horns” were again , brought out, but it must have required an effort to get up a team, who towards evening bore traces of having done a hard day’s work.

Oxford Chronicle 23rd June 1900 p3

ABINGDON

JUNE FAIR -This fair for the sale of horses was held on Wednesday. The attendance of dealers and the supply of animals was smaller than usual. The local auctioneers offered a number of good animals for sale, and others changed hands at satisfactory figures and were sent by rail to London, Binningham and other large manufacturing centres. A pleasure fair was held in the Market Place, and was well patronised by juveniles, and the Ock Street Morris dancers went on their way as before.

Abingdon Free Press 27th June 1902 p2

ABINGDON

JUNE FAIR -The June Horse Fair, held in the lower part of Ock Street, was the smallest on record. There were, however, some useful animals on offer, including cart, nag and cob colts. Some of the principal dealers were present, but trade generally was dull. The pleasure fair (which some years ago used to be held in the Ock Street, but now takes place in the Market Place) was much larger than usual. There were two roundabouts, besides shooting galleries, swings, stalls, icecream vendors, etc. The weather was fine. In the evening the market place was thronged with people, and the “fun of the fair” was carried on till a late hour. The “Morris Dancers” did not make an appearance this year. 

2.  Morris Dancing at Northcourt in the early 20th century. Northcourt is now a suburb of north Abingdon but even in the early 1900s was still a separate village.  From ‘The Berkshire Book’, compiled in 1951 by the Berkshire Federation of Women’s Institutes and first printed in 1939, it seems that the Abingdon morris dancers would dance in Northcourt on May Day:

On May day, until the early years of this century, Northcourt used to have a visit from the Morris Dancers of Abingdon; four or six men dressed in cut away tail suits and bowler hats, with ribbons tied round their legs under the knees, would bring a tall pole with an ox’s horns on the top of it; this they would set up before their dance; at the end of the dance they would produce a large wooden bowl, which was filled with beer; they then drank the beer and departed. On Christmas Eve or Boxing Day there was also a visit from the Mummers; performing the traditional Mumming Play; this continued up till 1939.

This is the only reference we have to the pre 1914 Abingdon morris team dancing anywhere but in Ock Street.

3.  Some background of what was happening elsewhere

This section has been written simply to provide background information about the folk collectors who came to collect dances and tunes from William and James Hemmings, in case the reader is not familiar with this.  It is compiled from a variety of sources which are listed at the end.

It wasn’t only in Abingdon that morris dancing was dying out.  The situation was similar in most of the Cotswold villages that had morris dance teams.  In Headington Quarry, where morris dancing could be traced back at least to the 1820s, the team had stopped public dancing in 1888.  In 1898 the antiquarian Percy Manning paid two of the older Quarry dancers to train up a team of local young men, and this team performed in March 1899 at the Oxford Corn Exchange during Manning’s lecture on old customs, and then danced in Oxford and Headington Quarry once or twice over the summer of 1899.  They saw that they could collect money doing the dancing, and when times were hard that winter, they decided to go out on Boxing Day 1899 to collect some more money from the richer inhabitants of Headington, down the hill from Quarry.

By chance, a music schoolteacher called Cecil Sharp was staying with his mother-in-law over Christmas at Sandfield Cottage, Headington and saw the Headington Quarry team dancing in the snow outside.  This intrigued him, and he arranged for the team’s concertina player, William Kimber (aged 27 and at the time called William Kimber Junior), to return the following day to teach him the morris tunes and to learn more about the custom.  This revived Headington Quarry team did not carry on much longer than this, but Cecil Sharp was now determined to add folk music (and later dancing) to his musical teaching.  At first he taught folk songs and music that had been collected by others, but in 1903 he was staying with a friend in Somerset and collected his first folk song (the Seeds of Love) from his friend’s gardener John England.  Sharp then threw himself into collecting folk songs.  It would be some years before he also started to collect morris dances.

Mary Neal was a philanthropist and early campaigner for womens’ rights who together with Emmeline Lawrence (later Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence) founded in 1895 the Esperance Club in London to improve the lot of young working girls through drama and music, and in parallel set up a tailoring business to support them.  In 1901 the Esperance Club recruited Herbert MacIlwaine as musical director.  In 1905 Herbert MacIlwaine read about Cecil Sharp’s folk song collecting and suggested Mary Neal speak to him about getting English songs for the girls to sing.  Later on Mary Neal also asked Sharp for details of English dances and he told her of his encounter with Headington Quarry in 1899.  As a result, in October 1905 she went to Oxford and asked William Kimber and his cousin Richard to go to London to teach Headington Quarry dances to the girls.  Public performances by the Esperance girls started in 1906 and mainly on Sharp’s recommendation started to give demonstrations and teaching in London and several parts of England.  At about the same time, Sharp started to collect morris and sword dances as well as folk songs.  Sharp had published a book of English folk songs and in 1907 published Part 1 of the first edition of The Morris Book, but the music and dance notation were devised by Herbert MacIlwaine who in turn had worked on them with the leading Esperance girl dancer Florrie Warren.

In 1908 Mary Neal founded the Association for the Revival and Practice of Folk Music.  As part of its activity it sent an Esperance girl dancer from London to Oxford to give dance instructions and in October 1908 Mary Neal visited Oxford to promote the revival at as meeting where both local schoolchildren and William Kimber gave a demonstration.  In 1909 the Esperance Club gave a concert at Black Hall, St Giles, Oxford at which Kimber also performed.  In 1908 MacIlwaine resigned from the Esperance Club and was replaced by Clive Carey who also became a collector of folk dances and songs.  Mary Neal and Clive Carey would go on to publish the Esperance Morris Book (Part 1 in 1910, Part 2 in 1911) in which all the dances they had collected for the Esperance Club were described.  Sharp and MacIlwaine meanwhile continued to publish more parts of the Morris Book (part 2 in 1909, part 3 in 1910).

The collaboration between Cecil Sharp and Mary Neal did not last long, as they had differing and strong views on how the traditions should be treated – basically Mary Neal thought that traditional dance was something that evolved over time but Sharp was more of the opinion that once written down then it had been formalised and should not change.  In 1909 Sharp, with help from Kimber, started to teach morris dancing to female teachers and students at Chelsea College of Physical Education.  By 1910 Sharp and Neal were openly and publicly arguing and going their own ways.  In March 1910, Mary Neal founded the Esperance Guild of Morris Dancers, open to all men and women who wanted to dance the morris.  In 1910 the Headington Quarry morris team was revived (again) and “boys and girls of the Esperance Guild of Morris Dancers had been invited to join a revival Headington side in a display in Oxford”.

In 1911 The English Folk Dance Society (EFDS) was formed by Sharp, with a committee that included Ralph Vaughan Williams and George Butterworth, and it soon had its own mens’ morris team to demonstrate and teach the morris.  The Evening News of 4th February 1912 reported that “Morris dancing has been taken up at Oxford, a number of the younger fellows and tutors being among its devotees”.  On 15th March 1912 the inaugural meeting of the Oxford Branch of the EFDS was held in the Corn Exchange, and from then until the outbreak of war in August 1914 the “Dancing Dons” and others were the forerunners of the Oxford Morris teams that would form in the 1920s and 1930s.

The two societies (EFDS and Esperance) operated independently to teach and promote morris dancing up to the outbreak of war in 1914, when Mary Neal shut down the Esperance Guild.  She seems to have ceased all active involvement with folk song and dance when war broke out, but remained in contact with Clive Carey, who would later pass on her correspondence with him to the Vaughan Williams Library.

In 1915 Mary Neal and Frank Kidson published the book “English Folk-Song and Dance”, Mary Neal writing the section on folk dance. She included a description of the Abingdon morris and horns, and her meeting with the Hemmings brothers.  The book has been reprinted in 1972 and again in 2011. It is available online at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/64536/64536-h/64536-h.htm

References for section 3

 

4.  1909 Mary Neal and Abingdon

In 1909 Mary Neal came to Abingdon to meet William Hemmings.  In her own words, written in the Esperance Morris Book she published in 1910:

….I was speaking at a very out-of-the-way village when a young man, who had sung a folk-song as part of the evening’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 keepers 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 the old man could neither read nor write, but had deputed a friend to write. This in itself is a recommendation 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! 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……

The ”small inn” was the Happy Dick in Ock Street.  Later on Mary Neal arranged for William and James Hemmings to visit London to teach Abingdon dances to the Esperance girls.  Again in Mary Neal’s own words:

Later, in London, when he came to the Esperance 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, “ I 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 the middle of the room ; there is a babel of voices, 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, “ you 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 entire satisfaction of the teachers. The other dances go through the same stages, and in two evenings we know all those which the men can teach us.

Some time in 1910 Mary Neal published the first volume of the Esperance Morris Book.  This described the dances and tunes for Sally Luker, Princes Royal and A Nutting We Will Go.  The dances as written in the Esperance Book are not as performed in the present day, nor are they the same as danced in the 1930s revival.  It is thought that possibly the Hemmings brothers did not teach the stepping and dancing that they remembered from their dancing days.  It is also of course possible that their descendants in the 1930s did not accurately recall the stepping and dances done before the first world war.

 5.  On 1st April 1910, Cecil Sharp visited Abingdon and his field notes (courtesy of the Vaughan Williams Library online archive) records that he met “James Hemming 57 & William Hemming 60”. From their accepted birth years, James would have been 55/56 and William 60/61.  Sharp’s notes (edited for clarity in some places):

Costume: high hat with ribbon band, streamers at back, flowers in front and optional feathers, white shirt with ribbons attached, white trousers, ribbon belt with hanging ribbons, wrist and elbow ribbons.  White handkerchiefs tied to little finger.  Music used to be a fiddle but now a melodeon.  Step: “polka step danced clumsily and vigorously on the heels”.  

“The dance clearly corrupt from forgetfulness.  It was given up 7-10 years ago in ‘regular style’.  The Hemming family always associated with it.”

Describes the 1700 ox roast on the “Market Bury”.  Dancers accompanied by a man who carries on a pole the horns decorated with blue ribbons.  Between the horns is an artificial mask made of wood and painted black with date 1700 upon it. [note: no date on the horns in Mary Neal’s photo at about this time] Dance takes place on 21st or 19th June (20th June is “June Fair Day”).  Election of mayor: voters must be residents of Ock Street.  Voting between 6 & 7 pm at the Mayor’s house.  If no new candidate, old mayor is re-elected.  Mayor seated in a chair decorated with evergreens is borne on shoulders and carried in front of the procession up and down Ock Street.   Procession consists of: 1. Horn Bearer; 2. Mayor in half-high decorated hat, smock frock, red necktie, money box round his neck, carrying a sword with a cork on the point, covered in a white rage and white ribbon round point and hilt; 3.  Ex-Mayor, similarly dressed carrying the cup with a silver heart on front with date; 4. Fool, white hat, face masked with flour & dashes of red paint, knee britches with ribbons on knee, shoes with silver buckles, white or yellow stockings. 5.  Musician, dressed in “plain way” with ribbons round his hat; 6.  Six dancers carrying handkerchiefs.

The procession stops before every pub in Ock Street.  It is not allowed to go out of Ox (sic) Street that day nor permitted to take money.

On June 21st at 7am one dance is done before the Mayor’s house, after which they walk through the town in the ordinary way, the Horns and fiddle are in front of the dancers, the Mayor to one side, ex-Mayor on the other.  The musician plays but there is no processional dance.  At 4 o’clock they knock off for one hour during which they have dinner.  Before June 21st they practise once a week for six weeks, an hour at a time.

Sharp collected the Princess Royal tune (not called Princes Royal by him) which he wrote down in the key of A.  The dance he wrote down as: Once to yourself, Column (dance up), Chorus: “first hold up arm nearest music”, wave and clap, then top and bottom couples change places, middles draw back to let them pass, Back to back (16 bars), Chorus, Back to back, Chorus, Column then Face to Face (in and back), end all in a circle.  Step polka throughout, on heels, stamping legs vigorously.  Hands swing back, swing forwards in the step, both hands up in the jump.  Not that different to the present days figures and chorus, but including, as in Mary Neal’s version, an early version of the Abingdon Hey (ends change) which is not in the present day dance.  The stepping and hand movements are not as today.  Sharp did not publish this dance at this time, probably thinking that the Hemmings brothers had not fully remembered it.  Or he might just not have bought them enough beer……

Sharp’s notebook of 1910 also shows he had found the report of Abingdon morris dancers on an annual tour in 1783 to Richmond, Surrey.  There is no mention of them having the Horns with them.  It’s possible they got a lift on a Thames boat.

Francis Godolphin Waldron (1744-1818): The Sad Shepherd or a Tale of Robin Hood by Ben Jonson, London, 1783.  Note by editor FGW at p 255: ‘In the summer of 1783, the Editor saw at Richmond in Surrey, a Company of Morrice-Dancers from Abington, accompanied by a FOOL in a motley jacket, &c., who carried in his hand a staff or truncheon, about two feet long, having a blown-up bladder fastened to one end of it, with which he either buffeted the crowd to keep them at a proper distance from the dancers, or played tricks for the spectator’s diversion.  THE DANCERS and THE FOOL were Berkshire-Husbandmen, taking an annual circuit, collecting money from whoever would give them any:  and I apprehend had derived the appendage of the bladder from custom immemorial: not from Old Plays or the commentaries thereon.’

6.  On 5th May 1910 Mary Neal’s Esperance Club and Guild of Morris Dancers put on a concert at Kensington Town Hall.  William and James Hemmings were invited up to London to take part in this.  The concert started with William Hemmings playing “The Girl I Left Behind Me” on the concertina for a procession which included the Ock Street Horns carried by James Hemmings.  The programme consisted of morris dances done by the Esperance girls, folk songs and traditional games.  Sally Luker and Princes Royal were the Abingdon dances performed, all the other morris dances being from Headington Quarry, Bidford-on-Avon or Ilmington.

To make the arrangements for the Hemmings brothers’ journey to London, Mary Neal wrote two letters to Mrs Hudson, landlady of the Happy Dick, postmarked 3.15pm and 4.15pm on 4th May – the day before.  The postal service was much more efficient in those days!

The first letter says:

Dear Mrs Hudson, This is single fare for the two Mr Hemmings.  We are expecting them at 50 Cumberland Market by the train which gets to Paddington at 4.15.  The same gentleman will meet them.  I should like them to insure the Horns, etc at the station as they have to be taken great care of.  I am sure you will talk nicely to them about not having any beer until after the concert, because it is so important and so very little upsets them.  They shall have some for supper afterwards.  Yrs truly, Mary Neal.

The second letter is a short note saying:

I have the concertina & Mr Hemmings need not bring his.  We want Horns, Cup aand Sword.

The concert took place on the evening before King Edward VII died.  After the concert the Lord Mayor of London had a drink from the Ock Street Cup.  Over the years this story seems to have become that the King himself had drunk from the Abingdon cup but this would have been impossible as he was in a coma for days before he died on 6th May.  It is said that the Hemmings family held King Edward in great esteem, which may have been prompted by the king’s visit to Abingdon on 11th July 1909 (as noted in the Abingdon Borough Records in Abingdon library).  There is no record of any morris dancing when the king made this visit.

The Hemmings brothers’ participation in the Kensington concert was reported in that week’s North Berks Hearald.  Interestingly it says there is no intention of reviving dancing in Abingdon streets (though there was some done at the June Fair just over a month later) and that the Hemmings brothers would be teaching dances to the children who would take part in the Fitzharris Revels that July (see Section 9). 

North Berks Herald 7th May 1910 p4

NOTES OF THE WEEK

To look backwards and forwards is common to nations and individuals. A custom to be treasured must have been in abeyance for some years and then it has all the glamour of the past to recommend it. Such a reflection which implies no cynicism is suggested by the revival of Morris dances, not in the resorts where they of yore were practised, not under the auspices which brought them into disrepute, but as a cult in high places, in the cities, and as a sort of make-believe for city-bred children to remind them of the country, and what it is, or used to be, when May comes round.

The climax of all this revival of folk-songs and Morris dances is to be found in the Esperance club and guild of Morris Dancers, who gave an entertainment in Kensington Town Hall on Thursday evening. The promoters, in their search for old exponents came to Abingdon, where the “Mayor of Ock-street” and his Morris -men used to parade the town on, or about, the date of June fair with the Ock-horns, the cup, sword and box. The last Mayor and his brother survive. Their services as tutors have been sought, and they took a prominent part in the Kensington revels, the programme of which included portraits of the two worthies, one in full regalia with the horns, the other with his accordion, on which the tune played was “The girl I left behind me”. If memory serves us rightly a fiddler used to do duty with the Abingdon Morris dancers. According to Thursday’s programme, the Morris dancers entered led by “The Lord and Lady,” and accompanied by the “Mayor of the Morris” and “The Squire” carrying the Ock horns, the cup, sword and box. The old custom observed at “The Lamb Ale” Morris dancing was also followed, with dancing round the lamb as in olden times, and a long sequence of dances, folk-songs and singing games then began. There is no intention of reviving Morris dancing in Abingdon streets, but the two local exponents referred to are giving lessons to those lads and lassies who will take part in the forthcoming Abingdon revels.

 

7.  20th June 1910: Dancing again at the June fair, but no Mayor election.

Abingdon Free Press 24 June 1910 p4

LOCAL NEWS & COMMENTS

This week on the 20th, Abingdon has witnessed again, after several years, The Abingdon Morris Dancers.  Many a tale is told of the “ancients” who elected every year the Mayor of Ock Street, and how that the “Ock Street Horns” which were carried in their perambulations through the town, were once disposed of by the “Mayor” for the quenching of his thirst.  The peculiar dances of the Morris Dancers were at least interesting, to say nothing of the “get up” of the band of performers, which was unique.

The North Berks Herald of 25th June 1910 reported the personnel taking part in the Mayor’s Day dancing as: “….W. Hemmings, son of a former “Mayor”, was recognised as still holding office and his deputy was G. Wake, a Crimean veteran, one carrying the sword and the other the cup. The “squire” was C.Nobes, the grandson of a former Morris dancer, and the six dancers, wearing bells, ribbons, etc were James Hemmings (an old performer), T.Hemmings, John Hemmings, Dalton, and two others named Hudson. A fiddler completed the party….”.  William and James were sons of the original Thomas Hemmings (b 1815).  The T.Hemmings here is Tom Hemmings (b 1887), son of James Hemmings, and the John Hemmings described here is actually Tom’s brother Joe.  The fiddler was Tommy Boswell, also known as Gypsy Lewis, an itinerant musician who lived outside Abingdon and who died in August 1910.

Abingdon Herald 25 June 1910 p5

ABINGDON

REVIVAL OF MORRIS DANCING -The widespread attention given to the revival of Morris dancing lead to the observance of an old Ock-street custom on the day following June Fair. There was no choosing the Mayor of Ock-street as in olden times, but W. Hemmings, son of a former “Mayor”, was recognised as still holding office and his deputy was G. Wake, a Crimean veteran, one carrying the sword and the other the cup. The “squire” was C.Nobes, the grandson of a former Morris dancer, and the six dancers, wearing bells, ribbons, etc were James Hemmings (an old performer), T.Hemmings, John Hemmings, Dalton, and two others named Hudson. A fiddler completed the party, and the Ock-street horns, dated 1700, were brought out for the occasion. The dancers started out at half past nine, and had a long, and what must have been a tiring day, dancing in the streets to such tunes as ‘Princess Royal’, ‘A nutting we will go’, ‘The curly headed ploughboy’, ‘Jockie at the fair’, etc. It will be remembered that W. and J. Hemmings have recently instructed at the London Esperance Club in Morris dancing, and took part in an entertainment at Kensington. They have also tutored the dancers who will perform in the forthcoming Abingdon revels on July 14th.

 

8.  The 1910 photograph of dancing on The Square

For those unfamiliar with Abingdon geography, The Square is not the Market Place but a roughly triangular piece of land where High Street becomes Ock Street.  It is where the War Memorial now stands.

There is a 1910 photograph of dancing on The Square which is thought to be the earliest one of the Abingdon morris.  In the past some have suggested it might be 1912 or even 1902 (the 1912 date was apparently written on a copy of the photo), but the fiddler in the photo (Tommy Boswell / ‘Gypsy’ Lewis) died in August 1910 and so it cannot be any later than 1910.  We don’t know for sure that this photo was taken on 20th June 1910, the date of the reported dancing for the June Fair, but it most likely is, as the dancing in Abingdon at that time does not seem to have happened very often. 

Combining the reports of Jonathan Leach and Keith Chandler, the personnel in this photo were:

  • Dancers left to right: Tom Hemmings (son of James), James Hemmings, Joe (Jack) Hemmings (son of James), Robert Henry (Bob) Martin, George (Stodger) Hudson and his brother Albert (Bertie) Hudson.
  • Sword and box: William Hemmings (Mayor of Ock Street), also described as Billy Hemmings the ‘King of Ock Street’.
  • Horns: William (Willie) Belcher
  • Fiddler: Thomas Boswell / ‘Gypsy’ Lewis
  • The man holding the Mace (cup) is a bit of a mystery. He looks to be middle aged if not older.  It has been said that it is  John (or Jack) Hemmings (brother of William and James) who would have been around 50 in 1910, but he almost certainly died in 1903.  The other possible John / Jack Hemmings could have been the son of William (actually Ernest John but known as John or Jack) but he would only have been around 26.  Other possibilities are that it is one of those mentioned in the press as being a non-dancer at the 1910 June Fair: G. Wake, deputy Mayor and a Crimean veteran (who would have been at least 70 in 1910), or C.Nobes, the “Squire” and “grandson of a former Morris dancer”.

The photo is probably posed rather than an ‘action shot’ which might explain why the dancers seem to be doing different steps and facing in different directions.  Only James, Tom and William Hemmings are dressed in all white.  The other four dancers have white shirts but dark trousers.  All dancers plus the hornbearer have bells and hats decorated with flowers, all have top hats apart from Joe (Jack) Hemmings who has a decorated straw hat (boater).

Nothing is known of the man called Dalton in the North Berks Herald article of 25th June, and it is possible his name was misreported and he might actually have been Bob Martin.  It is known that Bob Martin lived to a good age but would not discuss the morris with anyone.  Hudson was a surname known in Ock Street, as both the landlords of the Happy Dick and the Ock Street Horns at the time were called Hudson.

The original photo is believed to have been borrowed from Lily Rant of Steventon (she was part of the family that ran a chain of local shops ‘Rant and Tombs’, including one at 56 Ock Street).  Lily is in the photo, holding her bicycle.  Jonathan Leach thinks that the man wearing a straw boater at the top right of the picture is his father, Fred Leach, who would have been 20 at the time.  (Source J Leach: https://www.abingdon.gov.uk/feature-articles/abingdon-morris-dancing-and-mayor-ock-street-1914#_edn19  )

 

9.  14th July 1910 Fitzharris Revels

This event was held in the grounds of Fitzharris House and was very much along the lines of the concert in Kensington and other events organised by the Esperance Club.  The cover of the programme (“keepsake”) has the same artwork and layout as that of the Kensington concert and indeed of the cover of the Esperance Book.

The performances consisted of morris dances, singing games, and folk dances (Pavane, Gavotte and Maypole dances).  The morris dancers included schoolchildren and team run by a “Mr Hemming”, who signed himself GH.  We don’t know exactly who this man was, he may have been George Hemmings, brother of William and James but if we was then he was not involved in the Ock Street dancing and he seems perhaps to be more educated than William and James as he wrote a section of the programme on the history of morris in Abingdon (William at least could not read or write).  Earlier press reports (Berkshire Herald of 7th May and of 25th June) refer to William and James Hemmings teaching the morris team for this event.  The only Abingdon morris dance performed was Princes Royal, done by Mr Hemming’s team.  The other morris dances performed were Headington and Bidford dances described in the Esperance Book and also Sharp’s first Morris Book: Shepherd’s Hey (both clapping and stick versions), Bean Setting, Trunkles and How d’ye Do Sirs.  Besides Mr Hemming’s team, morris dance teams were made up of boys from West Hanney and Abingdon, girls from West Hanney and Abingdon, plus a Ladies team.  The whole Revels programme was performed twice that day, at 3pm and 6.30pm.  Before that, at 2.30 a “Fancy Fair” was opened by the Earl and Countess of Abingdon, with stalls based on various national and tother themes.

“GH”’s historical notes on Abingdon morris dancing list the purchase of morris bells in 1560, the date 1700 as the start date for morris dancing in Ock Street at the Horse Fair, the dying out of this custom but its “resusitation” that year (1910) and that only two of the original dancers remain.  It also mentions the general revival of morris dances and the work of Mary Neal and the Esperance Guild of Morris Dancing.  It also says that the morris team “will appear appropriately attired in Elizabethan costume”.

The programme has photographs of Pavane dancers and morris dancers in exotic costumes.  The men in the morris dance photos have Elizabethan ruffs and are accompanied by jesters and a “knight” on horseback.  The photos were obviously taken before the event and may or may not be of the actual performers.  [Pavane was a 16th century European court processional dance often used to open ceremonial balls.]  The programme also has the same photograph of William and James Hemmings that appears in the Esperance Morris Book.  The programme says that the singing games and morris dances were taught by Miss Leahy and Miss Aeschlimann of the Esperance Club.  There is no mention in the programme that William and James Hemmings taught any of the Abingdon dances.

The Fitzharris Revels were reported in the North Berks Herald 16 July 1910 p5

THE OLD ENGliSH REVELS SUCCESSFUL PERFORMANCES

The revels were the outcome of much discussion as to the nature of the programme. At a preliminary meeting a set play was proposed, but the prominence given to the revival of Morris dances, folk songs and singing games afforded a solution of the problem, and the choice of revels on these lines was a very happy one, commending itself to the adults and juveniles taking part. Of the 300 perfonners, nearly 230 were children, about 80 coming from Abingdon schools and the rest from Kingston Bagpuize, Longworth, Hanney, Sunningwell and Garford.

THE STORY OF THE MORRIS DANCE

From some notes contributed to the programme by “G.H.” it appears that according to most authorities, the Morris dance originated with the Moors, and is supposed to have been brought to England in the time of Edward III and remained popular in the country down to the later Stuart period. There is little doubt but that Morris dancing took place in Abingdon three or four centuries ago, and probably fonned part of the entertainment at the feast of the brotherhood of the Holy Cross held in Abingdon previous to the dissolution of the brotherhood in Henry VIII reign. The first authentic mention of the dance, however, is the churchwardens’ accounts of Saint Helen’s Church, in which the following items appear:-

ANNO MDLX. 3 of Elizabeth   Payde for two dozsin of Morres belles 1s 0d

ANNO. MDLXVll. Payde for setting up Robin Hoodes Bower l8d.

In a footnote by a member of the Royal Society of Antiquaries it is stated that the Morris bells here mentioned as being purchased by the parish in 1560 were used in their Morris dances, a diversion then practised at their festivals, as was the setting up of “Robin Hoodes Bower”,

From the year 1700, to within about 15 or 20 years ago, a team of Morris dancers (after the Ock-street Horse Fair) paraded the town and danced at several places until late in the evening. The custom seems to have fallen off for several years, but this year it was resuscitated. Only two of the original dancers, however, were among the team.

Within the last two years Morris dancing has been very much revived, and at the Esperance Guild of Morris dancers in London (founded by Miss Neal) the dancers are being taught on traditional lines, and several very successful exhibitions of different styles of Morris dancing have been given by members of the club, assisted by two old Abingdon survivors before referred to.

 

10.  Dancing at the 1911 June Fair

The Faringdon Advertiser, 24th June 1911, page 5 reports:

JUNE FAIR.-…For the first time in the memory of the oldest inhabitant there was no pleasure fair, but the old-time Morris Dancers went round on Wednesday.

24th June was a Saturday and the Wednesday was the 21st June 1911.  The same newspaper page reports that Thursday 22nd June 1911 was George V’s coronation and it’s possible there was dancing for that too.  There was also a Bun Throwing.  It is a little strange that the Abingdon /North Berks Herald does not seem to have reported the 1911 morris dancing, but it might just be that the coronation celebrations meant there was no room for it.

The North Berks Herald of 22nd June 1912 p5 carried a small report of the Abingdon June Fair held at the west end of Ock-street but there is no mention of any morris dancing or the Mayor of Ock Street.  It would seem that the revival of the Ock Street dancing lasted only for the years 1910 and 1911.

 

11.  The First World War

By early 1916 conscription came in for men aged 18 to 41 unless unfit or in a special (reserved) occupation.  In 1918 the age limit was raised to 51, and conscription was extended to 1920.  So most of the Abingdon dancers would probably have been conscripted unless they were born before 1867, or were unfit, or in a special occupation, or had volunteered earlier. 

The Roll of Honour for Abingdon lists all those who served between 1914 and 1919, and from it we find that:

  • Tom Hemmings was in the army (Royal Flying Corps) and then the RAF from 1915 until 1919.
  • Joe (Joseph) Hemmings from 123 Ock Street joined the 8th Royal Berks in Feb 1916 and was killed in France 22nd July 1916 aged 25. His brother Walter, who did not dance as far as we know, was killed in action in 1917, aged 34.
  • There are two Albert Hudsons listed, both with an Ock Street address. Both survived the war but both were wounded and ended their service before the end of the war.
  • The only George Hudson listed had a Thames Street address and was lost at sea in June 1916.
  • Robert Martin from Cemetery Road was wounded in Sept 1918. He is remembered as still living in Abingdon in the 1930s.
  • There are two entries for a William Belcher, neither of whom lived in Ock Street at the time. Both survived the war. 

Of the others identified in the 1910 photograph, Tommy Boswell had died in 1910 and William and James Hemmings would have been too old to serve in the forces.

 

12.  There was a homecoming parade in Abingdon on 4th August 1919, which included an address from the town mayor, a march-past and laying of wreaths, flowers and branches at a temporary memorial.  There is a 10 minute film of this event in the hands of the Imperial War Museum which has been shown in Abingdon museum and at a 100th anniversary event in 2019.  There is no sign of any morris dancing among the revelry and ceremony in the film, nor as far as we know in the local press.