When Punch Met Merry

When Punch Met MerryAuthor(s): Bob GrantSource: Folk Music Journal, Vol. 7, No. 5 (1999), pp. 644-655Published by: English Folk Dance + Song SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4522633 .

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When Punch Met Merry BOB GRANT

This is the centenary year of a remarkable event that took place at Sandfield Cottage, Headington, near Oxford. It happened in the forenoon of Tuesday 26 December 1899. A native ceremonial danceform ofgreat beauty was savedfrom oblivion by a chance onlooker as a team of morris dancers

from nearby Headington Quarry performed there on Boxing Day, at a time regarded by many as not correct for displays normally reserved for Whitsuntide. The essence of the tale has since often been recounted but with the passage of the years elements have been omitted and detail blurred or

forgotten. This article tells the story of the encounter.

Headington Quarry Morris Dancers and their Revival

THE HISTORY OF THE HEADINGTON QUARRY MORRIS DANCERS is a long and com-

plicated one and I have detailed it elsewhere.2 Suffice to say that a Quarry team is believed to have appeared and danced at Whitsuntide from about 1790 and danced every year without a break until 1887 when, for a combination of reasons (including ageing dancers, the death of the old musician, Frank Cummings, in 1885, and perhaps dwindling patron- age), the side ceased to dance. George Young, another fiddler, was pressed into service for the 'last great occasion' when the team appeared at Squire Hall's (the Oxford brewer's) great fete on the Oxpens in Oxford to celebrate Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee.3

The side was 'Black Jack' Haynes (Squire), William Kimber Senior, James 'Gran' Hedges, William 'Mac' Massey, John 'Brickdust' Horwood, John Simpkins and Bobby 'Pigeon' Cooper. Appearing with them as a fifteen-year-old junior dancer was William 'Merry' Kimber, son of William Kimber Senior. Years afterwards William Kimber (Junior) was to recall that in 1888 the side would get together for a shake-up amongst themselves but they did not come out as a team.4 There the saga of the Headington Quarry Morris Dancers might have ended had it not been for one of those quirks of fate that later prove to be of cardinal importance.

Percy Manning, a local antiquary, was an avid collector of local traditions and folklore, giving illustrated lectures to interested groups such as the Oxford University Anthropo- logical Society. At one such lecture in 1914 he described how he encountered a photograph of the Headington Quarry team, and went on: 'It then struck me that it might be possible to revive the Headington morris dancers, who had kept up their performances until about twenty years previously ... I discovered that two of the men, James Hedges and Jack Horwood, were still living in Headington ... I persuaded them to get a side together in the Autumn of 1898.'5 This was done and the cardinal point, of course, is that this was the actual revival without which the 1899 Boxing Day event could never have occurred.

Manning claimed that he 'provided them with the necessary dress and equipment on the exact lines as my old photo'. This was in preparation for a show in the Corn Exchange in March 1899. Manning stated that his 'old photo' was taken about 1864, but research

Folk MusicJournal, Volume 7, Number 5, 1999, pp. 644-655 ISSN 0531-9686 Copyright © English Folk Dance and Song Society



Mhen Punch Met Merry 645

Figure 1 Headington Quarry Moms Dancers, c. 1875.

Photograph copyright Oxfordshire Photographic Archive} negative number CC71/70

has shown it could not have been taken much before 1875 (Figure 1). His account does not quite tally with the evidence that has survived; the side had its own kit and regalia both before and after the March show and it is somewhat different from that described in Jackson's Oxfrrd Journal of 18 March 1899, which carnied illustrations and a verbal descniption of the team weanng armbands (which they did not have before), while the fool wore a top hat; this was Sip Washington and he invariably wore a pith helmet. The Oxfrrd Review of 16 March 1899 is more specific: 'The general dress was white, and looked not unlike a cnicketing costume, bound with nibbons, green, blue and orange, the two dancers weaning the same coloured ribbons always being partners if dancing opposite each other.' The monochrome illustrations show the team as weaning single-width bald- rics, so we have a set-up not unlike the coloured nibbons worn in school gaines lessons where pairs wore matching colours.7 An interesting sidelight to all this is that Jim Phillips of Headington Quarry Moms Dancers told me that the green, blue and orange were the old Quarry football club colours. I have in my possession Gran Hedges's bell pads and it is true that they had tufts of orange, green and blue nibbons surrounding the bell pad, but his family have his baldnics and the current team have William Kimber's, and they both are of two-inch-wide silk nibbon, one strap wine-red and the other a dark Oxford blue, held at the cross-over points and shoulders with rosettes of similar matenial. These rosettes are red and blue writh a white centre, with a reverse sequence of colour depending on the strap to which the rosette is fixed. Thus on the dark blue strap the outer ring of the rosette is red followed by blue and a white centre, while on the red strap blue is the outer nng, then red and a white centre. It is thus possible that Manning merely dressed them up for his own show.



646 BOB GRANT

The '1864' photo shows the team in white cricket-style caps with a rosette fixed cockade-fashion to one side of the peak, but the series of photographs taken of the team

by Henry Taunt in June 1899 shows the rosette now in the middle as in the manner of a cap badge.

The two men mentioned of the old 1887 side were 'Gran' Hedges and 'Brickdust' Horwood. This new team as recalled by William Kimber Senior was William 'Mac'

Massey, who brought along his son Charles 'Mac' Massey, William 'Sip' Washington as Fool (related by marriage to the Masseys), 'Curly' and 'Spuggle' Coppock (cousins), Richard 'Dobbin' Kimber (William 'Merry' Kimber's cousin and related by marriage to the Coppocks), Edward 'Durgin' Morris and John 'Waggle' Ward. Mark Cox, a local violinist (and related by marriage to Horwood) was pressed into service as the musician, picking up the tunes by ear as Hedges and Horwood hummed them to him. 'Jolly' Joe Trafford, who had started dancing in 1841 and retired from performing by 1880, assisted with the instruction of the newcomers.8

In meetings at the old club room alongside the Chequers Inn in the Quarry, instruction continued throughout 1898 in readiness for 'an exhibition of Morris Dancing' to be held at the Corn Exchange in Oxford on Monday night, 13 March 1899, organized by Manning and Councillor J. W. Taphouse. This event attracted a large and enthusiastic crowd and was warmly received. The show was introduced by Manning, and between dances Mr Woodward of Magdalen Choir, Mr Sunman of the Cathedral Choir and Miss Taphouse sang 'quaint and pleasing old English ballads'. The dances were: 'The Blue- Eyed Stranger', 'Constant Billy', 'Country Gardens', 'Rigs o'Marlow', 'How D'Ye Do Sir?', 'Bean Setting', 'Haste to the Wedding', 'Rodney', 'Trunk-hose', and 'Draw-back'.9

Encouraged by this success the team carried on, and at Whitsun was out dancing in the streets of Oxford. At the owner's request they called and danced at Sandfield Cottage as part of their Quarry tour. The music this time was provided by William Kimber on the concertina. The owner said that the dancing was very pretty and that the next time they were out they were to be sure to call and dance for her again. On Monday 26 June of that year the dancers were out again in the Quarry and Henry Taunt took his famous series of photographs of the side posed outside of the Chequers Inn, which at that time was its headquarters.

The Weather

Thus a revival had occurred and gathered momentum; where it was to lead was dictated by the weather. In the locality of Oxford during December 1899 a high pressure weather system established itself and brought in biting winds from the East from about 9 December onwards. Snow fell on the 11th, 12th, 13th, and 22nd, accompanied by some sharp frosts. Daytime temperatures struggled to rise above freezing. There was an exceptionally cold snap from the 14th to the 16th with night-time temperatures dropping to 9.5°F below freezing. Temperatures such as these were not recorded again in Oxford until 1986. Christmas Dy if w a v f ay itself was a very fine day with 6 hours of uninterrupted sunshine and the best temperature was 42.7°F.10 (Figure 2)

However, during the night the weather changed as a front crossed the region. The wind swung round to the west then north west, bringing sleet then rain overnight to reveal Boxing Day as a cold and overcast day with drizzle until about 2 p.m. The weather at the end of the month became milder, but by then it had had its effect upon the population, particularly those who worked outside for their living; the Headington

646 BOB GRANT



When Punch Met Merry 647

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P?ernari-is oio tihe Jfctiher uqf ech al, iy On tine meslhii.

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Results of Meteorological Observations . .. in the eight years 1892-1899, p. 97



648 BOB GRANT

Quarry Morris Dancers were all in that category. A large proportion of the men in Headington Quarry was employed at that time, if not in actual building operations themselves, then in associated activities such as stone quarrying, ochre digging, haulage and brick making, which was carried on in the clay belt above the limestone quarries at the foot of Shotover Hill. All these activities had to cease because of the weather. The well known Oxford building firm of Benfield and Loxley was employing steam-driven pumps draining water from their building excavations at nearby Garsington up to the 15 December, when operations had to cease; and the ensuing pages of the work journal are blank.11

Cecil Sharp and his Family

Cecil Sharp was in wretched health: he was an asthmatic and smoked a pipe, which could not have assisted his well-being. Moreover, he had an eye problem, which necessitated his wearing a protective eye shade during attacks against an acute sensitivity to light, though his vision was unaffected. This malady, which caused him exquisite agony, was described by his biographers as 'a form of cramp in the eyes'. Its medical name is fugacious episcleritis and it was also called 'hot-eye' which is a graphic description in itself.

At forty years of age Sharp, with his wife Constance, was spending Christmas at Sandfield Cottage with her mother, Dora Birch. With them were their children, Doro- thea (aged 5), Charles (3) and Joan (1). (Susannah, the last, was not born until 1902.) Dora Birch was the widow of Priestley Birch and the second daughter of Sir Henry Bold Hogthon of Lancashire. Priestley Birch was a Captain in the South Devon Militia and their daughter (Constance) was born in Kingsbridge, Devon in 1862. At the time of Priestley Birch's death in 1867 the family was living in a large Victorian villa called 'The Wilderness', at Clevedon in Somerset. It was whilst staying with friends at Weston-Super- Mare that Cecil Sharp met Constance, and they were married in 1893 at Clevedon. By 1896 Mrs Birch had sold up and moved to Oxford, spending two years at Headington Lodge before moving to nearby Sandfield Cottage in 1898. In the Spring of 1899 she engaged the well known Oxford firm of Knowles & Son to carry out some alterations to her new house, and William Kimber was one of the gang sent up to do the work. In conversation with William, Mrs Birch enquired as to what the local hobbies and activities were; right opposite her house on the Britannia pub field was the site of the various travelling fairs and the football ground upon which the ancestors of the current Oxford United played, a club which had been formed by 1893. In referring to these activities William also mentioned the appearance of the Headington Quarry Morris Dancers at Whitsun; although Mrs Birch was aware of traditional folk song, she had never seen morris dancing and requested that the side should call and dance for her when the season came round.12

At Whitsun the Morris Dancers dutifully called and danced for her, little more than a step across the road from the Britannia field where they customarily called at the Odd- fellows Lodge on their club and feast day. She enjoyed the show and asked to be included on the itinerary next time they were out-this of course they did on the Boxing Day of that year. Thus the histonrc 'chance meeting', although not orchestrated, was nevertheless preordained.

Sandfield Cottage

Sandfield Cottage was at O.S. map reference SP543070. In its place today stands a cul-de- sac of thirty-nine town houses, one of which carries a plaque on the wall commemorating



Hhen Punch Met Merry 649

Sandfleld l

Figure 3 Headington in 1899 (black) and 1999 (grey), showing Sandfield Cottage.

the meeting of Cecil Sharp and the Headington Quarry Morris Dancers at the site on Boxing Day 1899. (Figure 3)

The cottage stood for some ninety-five years before it succumbed to the attentions of a bulldozer in 1965 and the most important building in the history of the morris was reduced to rubble. By one of those ironies of fate John Horwood, a direct descendent of John 'Brickdust' Horwood, was the developer of the site, acquired for the knock-down price of /45,O00.13

The plot upon which the cottage stood was some two acres in area and was one of six such plots sold off in 1836 by the Lord of the Manor, Henry Mayne Whorwood, who had acquired 565 acres of fields in Headington at the Enclosure Award of 1804. Within forty-five years the Whorwood fortunes had declined and land was being sold off in lots; finally in 1849 the manorial rights and its manor house were sold (the latter is now part of the John Radcliffe Hospital). Although the site had been sold it is thought that Sandfield Cottage was not erected untl 1870.14

The soil here is light and sandy, hence Sandfield Cottage, which stood at the start of Sandy Lane (now Osler Road) leading in to Old Headington; nearby is Sandfield Road named after the Sand Furlong field of the 1804 Award. The road is the key to the



650 BOB GRANT

development of the whole area. Opened as the New Turnpike Road from Oxford to London in 1775, it avoided the difficult climb over Shotover Hill of the Old Road that ran beside the quarries and the hamlet of Titup (where William Kimber was bom). A 'New Headington' began to grow around the tumpike gate crossroads where it controlled the road from Old Headington village leading to the windmill and the 'Old Road'. Almost opposite Sandfield Cottage was a tumpike house, which was later to become the Britannia public house. By 1889 the whole area had become sufficiently large, together with Old Headington which still had five working farms, to be incorporated into the expanding City of Oxford boundary.15

Sandfield Cottage was no cottage but rather a Victorian Gothic-style villa. Built of local limestone under a tiled roof, it sported a riot of bay, dormer and oriel windows in arched frames, gabled ends with ornate pierced barge boards and tall stone chimneys, and housed some six bedrooms with the usual offices and reception rooms; it needed at least a cook and parlourmaid to help run it. It was one of a number of substantial houses built along the road as the gentry began to migrate out of the city, and had a chequered history of occupancy; families came and went, with gaps when it was unoccupied. In 1875 the resident was H. J. Virgin, a surgeon dentist of High Street, Oxford; he was followed by a Mr Luard, then Major A. Finch-Noyes and finally, before Mrs Birch arrived, a Mrs Eckford with her family and servants, leaving in 1896. Mrs Birch then took up her residence in 1898 and remained there until her death in 1902.16

The Dancers

Theodore Chaundy recorded in his biographical article on Kimber the names of the men in the side that Cecil Sharp saw on Boxing Day 1899 at Sandfield Cottage. They were: William 'Merry' Kimber (musician), James 'Gran' Hedges, William 'Mac' Massey, Charles 'Mac' Massey, John 'Brickdust' Horwood, Richard 'Dobbin' Kimber, George 'Curly' Coppock and William 'Sip' Washington as the Fool. However, when Maud Karpeles wrote to William in May 1932 seeking details of the meeting in 1899 for A. H. Fox Strangways's biography of Cecil Sharp, he replied that eight dancers were present with a musician and a fool. He added that there were four old dancers and four younger ones. The two dancers missing from Chaundy's list could have been George 'Spuggle' Coppock and John 'Waggle' Ward.

With William playing for them (Mark Cox, the violinist, had employment as a Mag- dalen College servant and was probably still in work) these dancers were drawn from the ranks of the revived side of 1898, including the two stalwarts Horwood and Hedges from the 1887 side and the Corn Exchange team of 1899.

These men were all locals, most inter-related and living in Headington Quarry itself. All were manual workers and, as noted before, mainly connected with the building indus- try and thus always at the mercy of the weather. At 54 years 'Brickdust' Horwood (died 1925), a brickmaker, was the oldest. Next, at 47, was 'Gran' Hedges (died 1909), a carrier for the local laundry work and general factotum, followed by 'Waggle' Ward, 44, a labourer, then by William 'Mac' Massey, 43, a brickmaker (died 1920), 'Spuggle' Coppock, 28, a labourer (died 1905), 'Dobbin' Kimber, 27, working his way up to be a foreman with Headington District Council (died 1925), 'Merry' Kimber, 27, bricklayer with the Oxford builders Knowles & Son (died 1961), 'Sip' Washington, 24, a well digger (died 1937), 'Curly' Coppock, 22, a builder who eventually had thirty men working for him (died 1949), and lastly Charles 'Mac' Massey, 21, son of William, also a brickmaker and building labourer (died 1959).



1hen Punch Met Merry 651

I recall 'Curly' Coppock in my youth as a tall man, somewhat hard of hearing; and Charles Massey was still living in the area. In 1976 I set out to trace the living relatives of all these men and succeeded in most cases in finding their sons and daughters, and in the case of Horwood and Hedges, their grandchildren, all still in the locality of Headington.

Boxing Day 1899

William, in talking to Jim Phillips and Charlie Jones (Headington Quarry Morris Dancers) in 1957, stated that the side arrived at Sandfield Cottage 'in the morning'. He also said that 'we went round and we got to Sandfield Cottage' implying that the tour had started elsewhere in Old Headington. After the performance at Sandfield cottage the troupe continued on its way, visiting houses down the London Road towards Headington Hill.

We do not know whether anyone else was with them; because of the inclement weather it is unlikely that they had followers as happens today, and the ten-strong entour- age comprised the musician, the fool and the eight dancers. The Headington dances only require six men to perform them and, as is usual even now, one spare man goes around with the collecting box whilst the other acts as the 'rag-and-stick' man, a watchman who will keep guard of personal belongings, top coats, whilst also carrying the stick bag and issuing them when needed. These two tasks are taken in turn by the team, thus allowing the dancers to take a 'blow' or break.

The shirts were white of a low collar pattern; a cravat was invariably worn, and as noted above, arm bands of ribbon were worn from 1899 on. The white trousers of flannel or duck were supported by an elasticated belt of multi-coloured bands and held by an 'S' buckle; these were popularly known as 'snake' belts. The footwear was commonly black laced-up boots though William seems to have preferred wearing white cricket boots. The bell pads were of red leather, slashed into three strips upon which rows of four brass latten bells were stitched. The pads some eight inches long by six inches wide were tied on by coloured braid strips and the whole framed with bows and tufts of half inch coloured ribbon. Two white handkerchiefs were carried and when dancing they would be held one in each hand, with the four corners of each gathered up into a bunch. The Headington short stick was about eighteen inches long, cut from local hazelwood about the diameter of a stout broom handle, peeled and painted in three equal bands of red, white and blue.

Thus, these men in their regalia appeared upon the snow-covered driveway, six formed up into two columns of three, William struck up the music to Bean Setting and away the men went, clashing their sticks as they wove patterns of movement.

It is noted that five dances were performed at the Sandfield Cottage 'pitch' although accounts of the order conflict. William said that the show started with Bean Setting whilst Cecil Sharp was later to note that Laudnum Bunches was first.17 In some order, Bean Setting, Laudnum Bunches, Constant Billy, Blue-Eyed Stranger and Rigs o' Marlow were shown from the Headington repertoire of some twenty-six dances. It was a typical programme mix of stick, column and corner handkerchief dances displaying a variety of steps and movements, comprising in all a show not exceeding twenty-five to thirty minutes, an important consideration when out touring and trying to stave off fatigue.

Cecil Sharp's astonishment at this spectacle prompted him to venture outside and question the men; the reason for their unseasonal enterprise and their being there was revealed to him. He asked William to return the next day in order that he could make a note of the tunes. This William agreed to do, and he played Bean Setting and Constant



652 BOB GRANT

Billy by dint of playing one note at a time as Sharp made his notations.18 Sharp then went to the piano and this time to William's astonishment and amazement his tunes were played back to him: 'I was never so much surprised in all my life!' This feat, which amazed William so much, would not have been particularly difficult for the professionally trained musical ear of Cecil Sharp, despite the novelty of the tunes.

The dance movements, though, were a different matter. Hitherto Cecil Sharp's sole experience of dancing had been in the ballroom-he was an accomplished waltzer by all accounts-no wonder then at his astonishment at seeing these dances which made him realize that here was an art form that was comparable with music and far beyond the niceties of the usual social dance. When some years later he decided to publish the dance notations and the accompanying tunes, he had to employ a system of dance notation derived from the choreography of classical dance.19 The two men finished their session with a long chat refreshed with a glass of wine and a biscuit. William was rewarded with a half sovereign and at their parting Cecil Sharp uttered the prophetic words 'We may meet again some day'.

The Aftermath

The fruitful partnership and friendship between these two men did not happen immediately. After his Christmas holiday Cecil Sharp returned to his duties as the Principal of the Hampstead Conservatoire and William went back to his trade as the weather began to improve-by 31 December the wind had gone round to the south, the skies had cleared and the temperatured had risen to well above freezing.

Although Cecil Sharp's imagination had been fired by the dances he did not at first see what to do with them. Beyond orchestrating the tunes he made no practical use of his discovery, but his suite of morris dance tunes, scored for strings, bassoon and horn was played at a lecture he gave on 26 November 1903.20

Sharp busied himself with folk-song collecting, but in September 1905 he had a visit from Miss Mary Neal, who was the honorary secretary of the Esperance Working Girls Club in London (mainly made up of young women who were seamstresses), seeking Cecil Sharp's advice on using folk songs as a possible recreational activity for the Club. This he willingly gave, and the girls took to the folk songs with enthusiasm. Flushed with this success she returned to Cecil Sharp to see if he knew of any dances that might complement the repertoire of songs. It was then that Sharp remembered his meeting with William and the Headington Quarry Morris Dancers and he told Mary Neal of his discovery. Immediately she set out for Headington (this was just before October 1905), found William, and then invited him and his cousin Dobbin to go to London in October to teach some dances to the girls in time for their Christmas party, starting with Bean Setting. At one of these teaching sessions, which were held at Cumberland Market, London, Cecil Sharp turned up and at first William did not recognize him. However, the instant that Cecil Sharp put a hand to his forehead in the manner of a shade, William exclaimed 'Ah, Sandfield Cottage' and the prophetic words at their original parting had come true.21

Enthusiasm for the movement grew and spread rapidly but collaboration between the two luminaries Mary Neal and Cecil Sharp was not to last, and a rift developed between them that was never to be healed.22 Cecil Sharp's views prevailed and William's status was secured. In 1911 Cecil Sharp founded the English Folk Dance Society, and perhaps this is as far as this article needs to go in tracing developments, except to note that locally



HMhen Punch Met Merry 653

the team seems to have remained in being. If the side went out on their traditional tours during Whitsun 1900 there is no public record of them doing so. In 1902 new bell pads were made in anticipation of festivities connected with the forthcoming coronation of King Edward VII. These were not held because of the King's illness, and a set of these bells now lies in the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford. However, sometime after 1899 and before 1905 when Mary Neal came to see William, a team of some kind was in existence. William was later to write to Cecil Sharp: 'We lost one or two of our old dancers and had a job to make up a side.' During this period William had trained a 'side of boy chaps to dance' and these boys were used to make up the senior side.

As has been noted, in 1905 William and others were helping with morris instruction in London, but of his local team William was to write to Cecil Sharp, probably in 1907/ 08, 'We have only danced twice since 1905, then it was only the two corner dances, stick dances and handkerchief dances, no jigs at all.'23 However, William meanwhile was dancing jigs in order to illustrate Sharp's lectures.

Envoi

One hundred years have now passed since that remarkable Boxing Day in Headington and the players have long left the scene. The arena has gone too, but the echoes remain and reverberate as strongly as ever.

Mrs Birch died on 10 January 1902 and is buried in Headington Cemetery. Cecil Sharp died on 23 June 1924 and was cremated at Golders Green, London. By a curious coincidence the last song Cecil Sharp collected was a version of 'Three Maids A-Milking' from an eighty-three-year-old woman inmate of the Headington Union Workhouse on 13 September 1923, a mere half mile up the London Turnpike Road from Sandfield Cottage where he had noted his first folk tune on 27 December 1899.

With the death of Charles 'Mac' Massey in 1959 William became the sole survivor of the participants in that fateful occasion, until his own death in his ninetieth year at his home on Boxing Day 1961, whilst 'his men' were out performing in the Quarry. His coffin was borne to the grave in Headington Quarry churchyard by his dancers in full regalia on 30 December. The annual Whitsun tour of that year had been the last occasion that William went out with his men, some seventy-four years after he had started dancing and sixty-two years after his first meeting with Cecil Sharp.

With the deaths of both Joan and Susannah Sharp in 1968 the last of Sharp's immediate family had gone (his wife had died in 1928). Joan was the first librarian at Cecil Sharp House and Susannah owned a retirement home at Copford in Essex. The Headington Quarry Morris Dancers, whilst at the Colchester Ring Meeting in September 1958, made a detour and went and danced for her at Copford Place, to her great delight.

William's immediate descendants are still largely in the Headington area, including his sole surviving daughter Sophie; and one near relative still works for William's old employers, the building firm of Knowles & Son, whilst his great-grandson Christopher, one of the team's dancers, is a chartered surveyor.

Our two men, although from opposite ends of the social spectrum, had some surpris- ing similarities beyond the mundane, such as that they are both keen pipe smokers and for most of their lives were of limited financial means. They were both men of some mettle, musical, creative, and leaders of men. They shared an admiration for the politics of Gladstone, and William always had a picture of him on the mantelpiece. He was



654 BOB GRANT

amused and delighted when Oxford City Council named a road 'William Kimber Cres- cent' after him, which he opened in October 1958, as it led directly off 'Gladstone Road' in Headington Quarry. There is now a 'Cecil Sharp Place' off Lime Walk, a stone's throw from the site of Sandfield Cottage (now Horwood Close).

In 1949 a Day of Dance centred on Sandfield Cottage celebrated the half century, and the Headington Quarry Morris Dancers will be there again dancing at the site to celebrate the full century. On Boxing Day 1959 at Sandfield Cottage William unveiled the plaque commemorating his meeting there with Cecil Sharp, and the Headington men performed the same dances. (Figure 4) The bronze plaque reads:

HERE ON BOXING DAY 1899 CECIL SHARP FIRST HEARD WILLIAM KIMBER PLAY THE

HEADINGTON QUARRY MORRIS DANCE TUNES.

William confirmed certain details of the original performance, indicating the window from which Cecil Sharp was looking out and the door to which he came.

~~~~~ g

Figure 4 William Kimber, supported by Harry Kimber, unveils the commemorative plaque at Sandfield

Cottage in 1959. Photograph courtesy of Headington Quarry Moms Dancers



These men are commemorated in other tangible ways too. For instance, at the Club's formal occasion, its Feast, the toast is proposed and drunk to 'The immortal memory of Cecil Sharp coupled with the name of William Kimber'; but the finest memorial of course is the living one and William's Headington Quarry team has continued since its reformation in the winter of 1947 without a break. Amongst its ranks there remain men who received their instruction in the dancing directly from William himself.

Notes Cecil Sharp was possessed of a fine Roman nose 'somewhat ruddy in tone' and hence his nickname

of 'Punch' among his friends. 'Merry' Kimber serves as an indication of his genial disposition and was useful in identifying the individual in a host all bearing the same surname as was the case in the close- knit families of 'the Quarry'.

2 R. W. Grant, 'Headington Quarry and its morris dancers: a brief chronology up to 1961', The Morris Dancer, 2.10 (1990), 153-62.

3 T. W. Chaundy, 'William Kimber: A Portrait', Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, 8.4 (1959), 203-09 (p. 204).

4 Kenneth Loveless, Sleeve notes to The Art of William Kimber (12-inch L.P., 12T249, Topic, 1974). 5 Percy Manning, [Lecture notes], Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Top. Oxon. d.200, f.63-64. 6 Bob Grant, Mike Heaney and Roy Judge, '"Copy of Gp Morice Dancers Mr Manning"', English

Dance and Song, 43.2 (1981), 14-16. 7

Oxford Review, 16 March 1899. 8 G. A. Coppock and B. M. Hill, Headington Quarry and Shotover, 2nd edn (Oxford: University Press,

1933), p. 56. 9 Jackson's OxfordJournal, 18 March 1899, p. 5. 'o Results of Meteorological Observations Made at the Radclffe Observatory . . ., 48 (in the eight years 1892-

1899; 1901), 97. 1 Messrs Benfield & Loxley, Company Ledgers, 1899. 12 T. W. Chaundy, p. 205. 13 Oxford Mail, 16 November 1964, p. 7. 14 Evidence from Kelly's directories and personal communication from Mrs S. Jenkins, local historian. 15 Edna Mason, 'Headington Quarry c. 1820-1860: A Study of a 19th-Century Open Village', Oxoni-

ensia, 54 (1989), 363-378 (p. 364); A History of the County of Oxford. Vol. 5, Bullingdon Hundred, Victoria History of the Counties of England (Oxford: Published for the Institute of Historical Research by the Oxford University Press, 1957), p. 157.

16 Kelly's directories, 1891 census and personal communication from D. Sutcliffe. 17 T. W. Chaundy, p. 205; A. H. Fox Strangways, Cecil Sharp,, 2nd edn (Oxford: University Press,

1955), p. 27. 18 Christopher Chaundy, Tape recording made at Theo Chaundy's home, 6 February 1957, copy in

Vaughan Williams Memorial Library. 19 A. D. Townsend, 'Cecil Sharp as Collector and Editor of Traditional Dance', Traditional Dance, 5/6 (1988), 53-78 (pp. 60-61).

20 Derek Schofield, Booklet accompanying Absolutely Classic: The Music of William Kimber (C.D., EFDSSCD03, EFDSS, 1999), pp. 10, 12.

21 T. W. Chaundy, p. 206. 22

Roy Judge, 'Mary Neal and the Esperance Morris', Folk MusicJournal, 5.5 (1989), 545-91. 23 Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, Cecil Sharp Correspondence, Letter, William Kimber to

Cecil Sharp, 4 April 1909.

When Punch Met Merry 655



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When Punch Met Merry