English Folk Revival

The British folk revival incorporates a number of movements for the collection, preservation and performance of traditional music in the United Kingdom and related territories and countries, which had origins as early as the 18th century. It is particularly associated with two movements, usually referred to as the first and second revivals, respectively in the late 19th to early 20th centuries and the mid-20th century. The first included increased interest in and study of traditional music, the second was a part of the birth of contemporary folk music. These had a profound impact on the development of British classical music and in the creation of a "national" or "pastoral school" and led to the creation of a sub-culture of folk clubs and folk festivals as well as influential subgenres including progressive folk music and electric folk.

Social and cultural changes in British society in the early modern era, often seen as creating greater divisions between different social groups, led from the mid-17th century to the beginnings of a process of rediscovery of many aspects of popular culture, including festivals, folklore, dance and folk song. This led to a number of early collections of printed material, including those published by John Playford as The English Dancing Master (1651), the private collections of Samuel Pepys (1633–1703) and the Roxburghe Ballads collected by Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Mortimer (1661–1724). In the 18th century there were increasing numbers of such collections, including Thomas D'Urfey's Wit and Mirth: or, Pills to Purge Melancholy (1719–20) and Bishop Thomas Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765). The last of these also contained some oral material and by the end of the 18th century this was becoming increasingly common, with collections including Joseph Ritson's, The Bishopric Garland (1792) in northern England.

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