I came across this article while Googling ‘English folk-heritage’.
http://www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com/news/free-archive-reveals-englands-folk-heritage
According to the writer, English people (inter alia) should be grateful to the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS) for "opening up traditional English music to an international audience" by uploading thousands of English manuscripts to the internet and a programme of events patronisingly-named 'The Full English'.
The headline reads “Free Archive Reveals England’s Folk-Heritage”. In fact this is not England’s folk heritage, but the folk heritage of the people who created it – the common English people.
Had the writer researched further he would have discovered that the EFDSS and other similar bodies have successfully managed to conceal a vast amount of English cultural heritage from its owners for almost 100 years.
Over its century of ‘guardianship’ EFDSS might have tried to inform English people that their national folk-treasures, their ancestral legacy, were in its possession; it might also have tried to return these treasures to the ethnic English from whom they were stolen 100 years before. But its principals did neither. Instead they decided to treat the folk-treasure of the English people as their own. They simply kept it shut it away, and allowed access to it by invitation only.
As reported in the above article the Society decided to make the English folk-treasures in its possession available to all and sundry; a decision that it had no legal or moral right to make since it was merely the guardian not the owner of this property.
In doing so it has reneged on the promise made by collectors such as Sharpe, Baring-Gould, Lloyd etc to those English common-folk who willingly recorded their traditional songs, tunes and dances ostensibly for English posterity and ethnic English survival. It has treated their English ancestors – the true owners of this English cultural heritage - with arrogance and disrespect and treated their national folk-treasures as they would have treated the cultural artefacts of an extinct South American tribe.
And what about the other private and academic collections that still hoard thousands of English song, tune and dance manuscripts and steadfastly refuse to return them to their rightful owners? It has been a hundred years since this English cultural intellectual property was stolen from ordinary English common-folk, by middle-class British Victorian collectors under the pretext of 'saving them for posterity'. To them posterity meant for the benefit of future generations of English people and for ethnic English continuity. EFDSS and other private and academic societies thus played a key role in the systematic disconnection of ordinary English people (particularly the urban English) from their folk-heritage, their cultural roots and their cultural identity.
In 2015 the vast majority of English people, unlike their Scottish, Welsh and Irish neighbours are completely disconnected from their cultural roots and would be unable to sing a single English traditional song so I see no reason why English people should feel anything but anger and resentment towards EFDSS and others like it.
To the writer of this article I would suggest that no amount of genealogical and ancestral research will ever be able to re-connect English people with their heritage, cultural roots and ethnic identity. It appears that these have been stolen from them forever.
http://www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com/news/free-archive-reveals-englands-folk-heritage
According to the writer, English people (inter alia) should be grateful to the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS) for "opening up traditional English music to an international audience" by uploading thousands of English manuscripts to the internet and a programme of events patronisingly-named 'The Full English'.
The headline reads “Free Archive Reveals England’s Folk-Heritage”. In fact this is not England’s folk heritage, but the folk heritage of the people who created it – the common English people.
Had the writer researched further he would have discovered that the EFDSS and other similar bodies have successfully managed to conceal a vast amount of English cultural heritage from its owners for almost 100 years.
Over its century of ‘guardianship’ EFDSS might have tried to inform English people that their national folk-treasures, their ancestral legacy, were in its possession; it might also have tried to return these treasures to the ethnic English from whom they were stolen 100 years before. But its principals did neither. Instead they decided to treat the folk-treasure of the English people as their own. They simply kept it shut it away, and allowed access to it by invitation only.
As reported in the above article the Society decided to make the English folk-treasures in its possession available to all and sundry; a decision that it had no legal or moral right to make since it was merely the guardian not the owner of this property.
In doing so it has reneged on the promise made by collectors such as Sharpe, Baring-Gould, Lloyd etc to those English common-folk who willingly recorded their traditional songs, tunes and dances ostensibly for English posterity and ethnic English survival. It has treated their English ancestors – the true owners of this English cultural heritage - with arrogance and disrespect and treated their national folk-treasures as they would have treated the cultural artefacts of an extinct South American tribe.
And what about the other private and academic collections that still hoard thousands of English song, tune and dance manuscripts and steadfastly refuse to return them to their rightful owners? It has been a hundred years since this English cultural intellectual property was stolen from ordinary English common-folk, by middle-class British Victorian collectors under the pretext of 'saving them for posterity'. To them posterity meant for the benefit of future generations of English people and for ethnic English continuity. EFDSS and other private and academic societies thus played a key role in the systematic disconnection of ordinary English people (particularly the urban English) from their folk-heritage, their cultural roots and their cultural identity.
In 2015 the vast majority of English people, unlike their Scottish, Welsh and Irish neighbours are completely disconnected from their cultural roots and would be unable to sing a single English traditional song so I see no reason why English people should feel anything but anger and resentment towards EFDSS and others like it.
To the writer of this article I would suggest that no amount of genealogical and ancestral research will ever be able to re-connect English people with their heritage, cultural roots and ethnic identity. It appears that these have been stolen from them forever.