Charlotte Sophia Burne: Shropshire Folklorist, First Woman President of the Folklore Society, and First Woman Editor of Folklore. Part 2: Update and Preliminary Bibliography

Folklore, April, 2001 by Gillian Bennett

Update

Introduction

Since Gordon Ashman and I wrote Part 1 of this study of the life and works of Charlotte Burne (Ashman and Bennett 2000), further research has uncovered additional information, resolved one or two queries, and shown that some of the details were not quite correct. For the past eighteen months, Dr J. C. Burne has been transcribing the contents of a previously-unread chest of Burne diaries, family letters, and notebooks. Amongst these were diaries kept by his great-grandmother, Charlotte Anna Burne (nee Goodlad), and her daughters Alice and Charlotte Sophia ("Lotty"). The letters were between Lotty, another sister, Frances Caroline ("Fanny"), and their mother and were written while Lotty was taking her "Grand Tour" of Europe in the summer of 1873. [1] J. C. Burne's edited collection of these letters, entitled With Mustard Leaves, Medicine and Parasol, was privately published in January 2001. [2] He has very kindly kept me abreast of his researches into Lotty's early history as revealed by the contents of the trunk.

My own investigations have also turned up some additional information in the Shropshire Records and Research Centre, Shrewsbury. It should be noted that there are also a few items of interest for biographers of Georgina Jackson. These include a notebook compiled by Georgina Jackson for her Shropshire Word Book. A note by the donor, J. C. Burne's father Arthur (S. A. H. Burne), says that it was found amongst Lotty's possessions after her death in January 1923; he suggests that it was given to Lotty when she took over Jackson's folklore project. There are also a few letters from Georgina Jackson seemingly to her publisher and a leaflet laying out terms for her school. In addition, there are: an obituary for Lotty's mother, Charlotte Anna Burne, who died in 1893; a letter written by Lotty speaking of Georgina Jackson's ill-health; and a tiny newspaper cutting containing a piece of blason populaire: "I am of Shropshire, my shins be sharp/Lay wood on the fyre, and dresse me my harpe."

Structure

This update has two sections: additional information and solutions to problems mentioned in Part 1; and corrections of matters of accuracy.

Solutions and Additional Information

In Part 1, Gordon Ashman and I wrote: "Not a trace now remains of [Lotty's] notebooks and letters" (Ashman and Bennett 2000, 1). This was also J. C. Burne's impression when he wrote his portrait of "The Young Charlotte Burne" (1975, 173). The material discovered in the old chest fortunately fills some of this gap. The letters cover a period roughly between 1865 and 1874 and, though they have no direct folkloric interest, are useful in fleshing out the picture of Lotty's early life (and, indeed, that of a Victorian girl from a monied family). J. C. Burne has also discovered some sentimental verses in "a secret drawer"--written in Lotty's handwriting and apparently composed by her--which indicate an unhappy love affair or unrequited affection which occurred about 1879 and was over by 1883 ("I still think of him," she wrote under the verses dated 1883, "but I don't love him any more." Yet, in her diary for 2 November 1883, Alice waspishly noted: "Lotty wrote her love letters, a great event"). J. C. Burne has also turned up an extraordinary letter to Lotty from George Laurence Gomme written in April 1890 after an FLS Council Meeting, which refers to her having been called the "Queen of Folklore Collectors" (at that meeting?), and wishing her a speedy recovery from a bout of flu contracted, according to her sister Alice's diaries, in February of that year:

   May it please your Majesty!

      Your dutiful and loyal subject sends greetings on this day of meeting of
   Folklorists and ventures to express his high delight that at last one
   Folklorist has had the grace to think it, and the poetry to express it,
   that Miss Burne is the Queen of Folklore Collectors. In future we have but
   to do your sovereign behests, lest at any time we fall short of your most
   gracious majesty's sound opinion. In the meantime we all desire, and took
   occasion tonight to express such desire, that your recovery would be speedy
   and pleasant,

      From the most faithful of your subjects, G. L. Gomme.

There was also a bad-tempered note from Andrew Lang (May 1890) saying that he could not possibly undertake another book review as he had done four already that year.

More importantly, J. C. Burne has found a journal in the chest, which Lotty compiled as a young girl between 1862 and 1864. This is of considerable folkloric interest. It is full of natural history; notes about customs she has observed, epitaphs, and inscriptions on bells; here are also drawings of carvings she has seen on screens and pew ends in churches. Everything is incredibly well documented for a girl in her early teens. It is apparent that she was a very bookish child who already had a keen interest in the things that would lead her to be a folklorist of note in adult life.

In 1863, for example, as a girl of thirteen, she notes May Day celebrations. She has seen girls collecting with dolls ("I believe there's a similar custom in Leicestershire," she remarks). There are also four pages of description of All Saints Day from the same year, with several versions of soul caking songs plus observations like: "An old woman says that when she was a girl ..."; "another says ..."; "Mary says ..." and so on. It is evident that the journal was raided for information when Shropshire Folklore was being compiled. It is interesting in this context to note that in Shrewsbury Research and Record Centre there is a letter from Lotty in 1886 to the editor of the Transactions of the Caradoc and Shropshire Field Club offering him an item about epitaphs and bell inscriptions based on material she decided not to include in Shropshire Folklore (there is a large number of entries on these subjects in the notebooks). I cannot discover whether the Transactions took up this offer: contributors are for the most part not named.