Lucy Broadwood

Lucy Etheldred Broadwood (9 August 1858 – 22 August 1929) was an English folksong collector and researcher during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As one of the founder members of the Folk-Song Society and Editor of the Folk Song Journal, she was one of the main influences of the English folk revival of that period. She was an accomplished singer, composer, piano accompanist, and amateur poet. She was much sought after as a song and choral singing adjudicator at music festivals throughout England, and was also one of the founders of the Leith Hill Music Festival in Surrey.

Life and work

Early life and family

She was born at 2am on 9 August 1858, at the Pavilion, the summer residence that her father rented at Melrose in Scotland, the daughter of the piano manufacturer Henry Fowler Broadwood (1811–1893) (eldest son of James Shudi Broadwood) and his wife Juliana Maria, 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."