Charlotte Sophia Burne

Charlotte Sophia Burne (Shropshire, 1850–1923) was an English author and editor, and the first woman to become president of the Folklore Society.

Charlotte Sophia Burne was born on 2 May 1850 at a vicarage in Shropshire, near to the border with Staffordshire, the first of Charlotte and Sambrooke Burne's six children. Her parents had arrived the day before, after leaving Loynton Hall on an ancestral estate in Staffordshire, as the guests of the reverend Tom Burne. The family moved to Summerhill, Edgmond, Shropshire in 1854, having exhausted their welcome. Her father received debilitating injuries in a hunting accident several years later, causing to the family to move as the burden of his care was shared amongst the extended Burne family. She was sent to Loynton Hall for holidays, which was now occupied by mainly unmarried aunts who reported she was undisciplined. Lotty, as she was called, suffered several serious illnesses during her early years, conditions of ill health and obesity would impede her physical well-being throughout her life.

Burne's works include the large collection, Shropshire Folklore, and preparation of the second edition of the society's official Handbook of Folklore, she also contributed over seventy articles and reviews to its journals. Her appointment to various positions in the Society was unusual, having been previously held by its London members, and she was the first woman to become President or editor of its publications. A small amount of other material was published in newspapers and magazines.

Despite the firsts, penetrating gender and regional barriers, and serving the society for forty years, during a well-documented period of its history, details of her life and works are inadequately noticed. Some correspondence of Burne with leading members Alice Bertha and G. Laurence Gomme is contained in the Society's archives, but her personal papers seem to have been destroyed. A vague and inaccurate portrait of her life and works was given in references to her in Richard Dorson's history of the British folklorists (1968); J. C. Burne, a great nephew, drew on letters and recollections of her family for a "tactful biography" published in 1975. An obituary was published by E. Sidney Hartland.

...
Wikipedia