Pilgrim College (Boston, Lincolnshire). Lincolnshire Folk Archive

The Lincolnshire Folk Archive was established in the early 1960s at Pilgrim College, Boston to preserve folk songs from Lincolnshire and South Humberside. The archive preserved and built upon the early recording activities of Percy Grainger (1882-1961). Patrick O'Shaughnessy of Pilgrim College, who edited and wrote about Lincolnshire folksong, was central to the collection's development and publicity. The archive contains no material dated post-1991. It was transferred to The University of Nottingham's Department of Manuscripts and Special Collections in 1993.

Pilgrim College, Fydell House, Boston was founded in 1945 and for many years has been part of The University of Nottingham's School of Continuing Education. It is supported by Boston Borough Council, Boston Preservation Trust, Lincolnshire County Council and the East Midlands District of the Workers' Educational Association. It provides open studies, certificate, part-time degree, and postgraduate courses as well as a variety of societies and clubs.

Percy Grainger was born in Melbourne, Australia on 8 July 1882. He studied in Frankfurt before becoming a successful concert pianist in England at the start of the 20th century. In the years 1905-1908, Grainger meticulously studied Lincolnshire folksongs, making precise notes about dialect, rhythm, and accentuation. From 1906, he recorded many of these songs using an Edison-Bell phonograph, thereby becoming the first folksong collector to use mechanical recording apparatus. He later returned to these recordings where he found inspiration for his masterpiece, 'A Lincolnshire Posy' (1937). Frederick Delius also found inspiration in Grainger's notations for his English Rhapsody, Brigg Fair, being a set of orchestral variations on the song 'Brigg Fair', as recorded by Grainger. Percy Grainger died in the USA in 1961.

A copy set of Grainger's phonograph folksong recordings on magnetic tape are part of the Lincolnshire Folk Archive. Many of these songs have been published in some form or another beginning in 1908 when the Gramophone Company (now HMV) began to issue records of genuine folk singers. Joseph Taylor was one of the best known Lincolnshire folk singers at that Grainger recorded.

From the guide to the Lincolnshire Folk Archive, 1908-1991, 1908-1991, (The University of Nottingham)