History of the library

Today the library is known as the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library (VWML) in honour of the composer, song collector and President of the EFDSS, Ralph Vaughan Williams, who died in 1958.  Up until that point it was called the Cecil Sharp Library as it chiefly comprised Sharp’s personal library, which he bequeathed to the EFDS in 1924.  Its first permanent home was established with the opening of Cecil Sharp House in 1930, and Sharp’s daughter Joan was the first librarian.

With the amalgamation of EFDS and the Folk Song Society in the1930s and subsequent bequests, donations and purchases, the library has developed considerably over the years, most notably with the addition of the literature, sound and manuscript collections of other eminent folklorists and collectors of the twentieth century. These include the original papers of Lucy Broadwood, Janet Blunt, Anne Gilchrist, Maud Karpeles, George Butterworth, George Gardiner, the Hammond Brothers and Francis Collinson; copies of the papers and notebooks of Sabine Baring-Gould, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frank Kidson, Gavin Greig and James Madison Carpenter; and the field recordings of Percy Grainger, Mike Yates and the BBC Folk Music Archive.