George Gardiner

George Barnet Gardiner (1852 – 1910) was a Scottish-born folk-song collector who collected songs from traditional singers in Southern England, chiefly in Hampshire, but also in Surrey, Sussex, Somerset and other counties. He collected over 1,400 songs in a six-year period between 1904 and his death in 1910.

Folk song collecting In 1903, he began a "systematic study" of European folk song, building up a large collection of songs and learning songs in many different languages. He learned of and joined the Folk Song Society, and read the six issues of their Journal published up to that time, writing later "In these volumes I at last found what I wanted - a body of nameless, hereditary songs of the people...."

Death In 1910, Gardiner died of kidney failure and was buried in Edinburgh. In the same year 16 songs were published as Book III of the series "Folk Songs of England" edited by Cecil Sharp. After Gardiner's death his notebooks and the music manuscripts of his collaborators came into the possession of the Folk Song Society.

In 1965 the EFDSS published "Marrow Bones", a compilation of songs from the Gardiner and Hammond collections edited by Frank Parslow. Three more books followed - "The Wanton Seed" (1968), "The Constant Lovers (1972) and "The Foggy Dew" (1974). In total these books contained 202 songs collected by Gardiner. The Marrow Bone series was an important source of material for English folk musicians, and has recently been revised and reprinted in three books.