Alex Helm (1920–1970) was an award-winning British folklorist, described as "one of the most important figures in the study of calendar custom and olkdance in post-war England".

Early life and education

Helm was born in

Burnley Burnley () is a town and the administrative centre of the wider Borough of Burnley in Lancashire, England, with a 2021 population of 78,266. It is north of Manchester and east of Preston, at the confluence of the River Calder and River B ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...

, in 1920, becoming interested in folk dancing whilst attending

Burnley Grammar School Burnley Grammar School was latterly, a state-funded selective boys' grammar school, situated in Byron Street in Burnley, Lancashire. However, during its long history, it moved between a number of sites in the town. History In 1552, on the orde ...

. He trained to become a teacher at St John's Teacher-training College,

York York is a cathedral city in North Yorkshire, England, with Roman Britain, Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers River Ouse, Yorkshire, Ouse and River Foss, Foss. It has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a Yor ...

. During the Second World War he served in the Indian Army Ordnance Corps, reaching the rank of Major.

Career

After the war, Helm taught at Northumberland Heath Secondary School,

Erith Erith () is an area in south-east London, England, east of Charing Cross. Before the creation of Greater London in 1965, it was in the historical county of Kent. Since 1965 it has formed part of the London Borough of Bexley. It lies north ...

, before in 1949 moving to Danesford School at

Congleton Congleton is a market town and civil parish in Cheshire East, Cheshire, England. It is on the River Dane, south of Manchester and north of Stoke on Trent. At the 2021 census, the parish had a population of 28,497 and the built-up area ha ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...

Folklore Research

Helm began to take an interest in the history of dances and dramatic traditions of Lancashire and Cheshire, in part influenced by Margaret Dean-Smith, Librarian of the

English Folk Dance and Song Society The English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS, or pronounced 'EFF-diss') is an organisation that promotes English folk music and folk dance. EFDSS was formed in 1932 when two organisations merged: the Folk-Song Society and the English Folk Dan ...

(EFDSS), with whom Helm had helped to sort and index the Society's papers. Within a year of his move to Cheshire he had published research on ‘The Cheshire Soul-caking Play’, a type of folk play that had been little studied. During this period Helm, now a member of the Manchester Morris Men troupe, also began to research Lancastrian Morris traditions. Helm joined the Folklore Society in 1954. He soon made a study of the papers of T. F. Ordish, held in the collections of the Society. Ordish, a 19th century folklorist who specialised on

mummers' play Mummers' plays are folk plays performed by troupes of amateur actors, traditionally all male, known as mummers or guisers (also by local names such as ''rhymers'', ''pace-eggers'', ''soulers'', ''tipteerers'', ''wrenboys'', and ''galoshins''). ...

s, had planned – but never completed – a monograph on British folk drama. Inspired by this work, Helm’s research expanded from

folk dance A folk dance is a dance that reflects the life of the people of a certain country or region. Not all ethnic dances are folk dances. For example, Ritual, ritual dances or dances of ritual origin are not considered to be folk dances. Ritual dances ...

and folk play into creating a geographical index of British seasonal customs, of which folk dance and folk play would form sections. For this project he worked with a group of researchers -

E. C. Cawte Edwin Christopher Cawte (3 September 1932 – 27 July 2019) was an English folklorist. Life Edwin Christopher Cawte was born in Boscombe, a suburb of Bournemouth in Dorset, England; his family soon moved to Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne. He ...

, Norman Peacock and Roger Marriott. The group co-authored 'A Geographical Index of the Ceremonial Dance in Great Britain', which was published as two journal articles in 1960 and 1961 and ''English Ritual Drama: A Geographical Index'' in 1967. ''English Ritual Drama'' is now seen as a seminal work, being the "first systematic attempt to list every known occurrence of the folk play in Britain and to provide a source for each location".

Recognition and influence

In 1968 Helm was awarded the Coote Lake Medal of the

Folklore Society The Folklore Society (FLS) is a registered charity under English law based in London, England for the study of folklore. Its office is at 50 Fitzroy Street, London home of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. It wa ...

, for "outstanding research and scholarship" in the field of Folklore Studies. Whilst never a field collector, he was hailed for his "great ability to interest and stimulate others, and to guide them with his deep and growing knowledge", Helm died in 1970: his life and work being "cut short as he reached his peak". Helm had a considerable influence on later customs researchers in England, particularly through the geographic approach he advocated. His argument that folk dance and folk play should be studied as rituals or customs - as opposed to the literary approach adopted by earlier scholars like E. K. Chambers - became the adopted model (although one criticised by later researchers). Helm's research papers - including correspondence, manuscript notebooks and working papers for his research on seasonal customs - are now held in the Special Collections of UCL.

Selected publications

Helm, Alex (1950). "The Cheshire Soul-Caking Play". ''Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society''. 6 (2): 45–50. Helm, Alex (1954). "The Rushcart and the North-Western Morris". ''Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society''. 7 (3): 172–179. Helm, Alex (1955-09-01). "Report on the Ordish Papers". ''Folklore''. 66 (3): 360–362. Cawte, E. C.; Helm, Alex; Marriott, R. J.; Peacock, N. (1960). "A Geographical Index of the Ceremonial Dance in Great Britain: Part One". ''Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society''. 9 (1): ii–41. Cawte, E. C.; Helm, Alex; Peacock, N. (1961). "A Geographical Index of the Ceremonial Dance in Great Britain: Addenda and Corrigenda". ''Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society''. 9 (2): 93–95. Helm, Alex (1965-06-01). "In Comes I, St George". ''Folklore''. 76 (2): 118–136. Cawte, E. C; Helm, Alex; Peacock, N (1967). ''English ritual drama: a geographical index,''. London: Folk-lore Society. Helm, Alex (1981). ''The English mummers' play: With a foreword by N. Peacock and E.C. Cawte''. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Brewer.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Helm, Alex 1920 births 1970 deaths British folklorists People from Burnley People educated at Burnley Grammar School Military personnel from Lancashire Indian Army personnel of World War II British Indian Army officers British people in colonial India