Archive

July 28 Outbreak of WWI and the closure of Espérance Club.
Mary moves to Isle of Dogs to work in Pensions Office but has hopes of building a theatre in the East End

1915
Cecil Sharp travels to the US as dance advisor to Granville Barker production of Midsummer Night’s Dream. He is helped by Richard Aldrich Music Critic New York Times. His wife, Constance, suffers major heart attack.

1916
July Sharp and Maud Karpeles go to Appalachians, to collect English traditional songs and ballads. In Dec he returns to the UK. His son Charlie has been wounded in the war and is in hospital in London.
In Thaxted, Gustav Holst and Conrad Noel stage a Whitsun music festival.
Mary’s nephew David Neal, on leave from the Western front, marries Margaret Wilson.
Dec David Lloyd George becomes Prime Minister

1917
Sharp, his family and Maud Karpeles, move to 7 Church Row Hampstead. ‘English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians’ appears. Sharp’s own health deteriorates with asthma, neuralgic headaches, fever and delirium