Lucy Broadwood

She was born on 9 August 1858, at the Pavilion, the summer residence that her father rented at Melrose in Scotland. She was the daughter of piano manufacturer Henry Fowler Broadwood (1811–1893) (eldest son of James Shudi Broadwood) and his wife Juliana Maria née Birch, and great granddaughter of John Broadwood, the founder of Broadwood and Sons, piano manufacturers. She was the youngest of eleven children (two boys and nine girls). Henry's mother was of Scottish descent and from her he had learnt the ballad "The wee little croodin' doo", which he would sing to the young Lucy. She recalled later: "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 and in our Tweedale home." For a number of years, the family maintained a home in London, where the Broadwood piano manufacturing factory was situated. In 1864, however, following the death of Lucy's uncle, Rev. John Broadwood (17981864), the family moved to Lyne House, in the parish of Capel in Surrey, just across the county border from the Sussex village of Rusper.

John Broadwood, her uncle, had been responsible in 1847 for self-publishing what is now recognised as the first true collection of English folk songs (comprising both words and music as collected from "rustics" in Surrey and Sussex). Other works had appeared before, but none married actual words and music as collected together. The work, which is more commonly known today by the shortened title Old English Songs, comprised a small number of songs which Broadwood had personally collected and noted down, and which were provided with arrangements by W.A. Dusart, an organist from Worthing, a few years before publication. Broadwood was inspired by his example when she learnt of it around 1870 (several years after his death). She was aware of Harriet Mason who had published gathered folk songs in 1877. These examples did not lead immediately to emulation; but in 1890 a revised edition of Broadwood's collection was published by Leonard and Co, with new arrangements by Herbert F. Birch Reynardson, Broadwood's cousin, under the title of Sussex Songs. It was produced with her assistance, and also contained an additional sixteen songs that she had collected. (It now appears that at least one of these was collected by her father, Henry Fowler Broadwood.) The publication was sold for 2/6d. It is notable that, although Broadwood had worked on it, her name is not credited in its contents.

She was also heavily involved in the early music movement, and in editing Purcell works, and was a member of the Purcell Society. Through this association she became acquainted with, and was also distantly related, by the marriage of one of her cousins, to J.A. Fuller Maitland (1856–1936), a music critic for The Times at that time, and musician. Her friendship and collaboration with him lasted for the rest of her life. As a result of her work on Sussex Songs she was invited to collaborate with him on preparation of what was to become one of a number of influential folksong publications in the late 1880s/early 1890s. This was English County Songs, and this time Broadwood was fully credited as joint editor of the work. The song arrangements were provided by both herself and Fuller Maitland. The book was published to much acclaim in the summer of 1893, and is a milestone in English folksong studies. In the words of Ralph Vaughan Williams: "This may be said to be the starting point of the modern folk song movement". Shortly after the book's publication, her father died and she and her mother moved to a flat in London in 1894. Following her mother's death, Broadwood continued to live in a succession of London flats until her death in 1929. In 1906, she contributed an appendix entitled "English Airs and Motifs in Jamaica" to the book Jamaican Song and Story by Walter Jekyll. Her other principal publication was English Traditional Carols and Songs which was published in 1908. On this occasion all of the song arrangements were her own, and all of the songs had been collected by her. (In the previous publication, English County Songs the majority of songs were actually gleaned from earlier publications, or had been submitted to the editors by other collectors). An important source was the Horsham shoemaker Henry Burstow, from whom she had collected many songs, the first on 2 May 1892.