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Charlotte Sophia Burne

Shropshire Folklore Introduction Contents

Many thanks to Dr John Burne and Roger Burne, great-nephew and great-great-nephew respectively, of Charlotte for some of this information.

Charlotte Sophia Burne (1850-1923) was an accomplished and respected folklorist who was both President (1909-10) and Vice-President of the Folklore Society.

Charlotte was born to Thomas Sambrooke Higgins Burne and Charlotte Anna (née Goodlad). on 2^nd May 1850. The eldest of six children, Charlotte was known to the family as Lotty to distinguish her from her mother. In 1858, Thomas - described in the Folklore article as a 'scapegrace' (i.e. rascal) - was heir to Loynton Hall, Newport - suffered a fall from his horse caused by, in Dr Burne's rather nice phrase, "a surfeit of stirrup cups". He died in 1861. The family went to stay with a succession of relatives: Lotty's maternal grandmother, Mary Goodlad, in Ilfracombe; the Briscoes in Kingswinsford and the Whitelegges in Manchester. In 1869 Lotty's mother suffered a heart attack and it was left to Lotty and her next eldest sister, Fanny, to run the household.

In 1890 her Handbook of Folklore was published, followed by an extensively-revised edition in 1914. The Handbook offers advice on collecting folklore from 'backward', 'uncultured' or even 'barbaric' peoples - how much Charlotte really thought this of her sources and how much was pandering to the prejudices of her audience is debatable. She emphasises respecting both the people and their beliefs.

Charlotte's work on the folklore of Shropshire was originally published in 1879 as A Sheaf of Gleanings: Shropshire Folklore.

Although A Sheaf of Gleanings is the work of Charlotte Burne, the book is based, at least in part, upon the earlier work of Georgina Jackson who collected Shropshire folklore in the 1870s as a by-product of research for her Shropshire Word-Book. The first edition was credited as being edited by Charlotte based upon the collections of Georgina.

Charlotte Sophia Burne. Thanks to Roger Burne for the photo.

The Word Book was published in 1879 and was, as its name suggests, a list of dialect words and phrases which Georgina had gathered in Shropshire. To a philologist, I'm sure it would be fascinating - but I find the folklore much more interesting. In her travels 'collecting' dialect words Georgina had heard many folktales and she initially intended these to form Part 2 of the Word Book. Unfortunately, Georgina fell ill during the course of compiling the book and she asked Charlotte to complete it. Charlotte expanded the original notes and the book was first published in 1883. Both were very genteel - Georgina wishing Charlotte well with the continuance of the work: Charlotte thanking Georgina for the chance to carry it on. For the sake of consistency, unfair as it may be, I'm going to attribute all tales to Charlotte...

For anyone wishing to go to the original sources...

Georgina's Shropshire Word Book was originally published in 1879 by Trubner & Co and republished in 1982 by Candle Lane Books.

A Sheaf of Gleanings was originally published in 1883, also by Trubner & Co. It's just about impossible to find a secondhand copy (although a Japanese bookseller had a copy on sale for about GBP800 for quite a while). It was re-published by E. P. Publishing in 1973 in 2 volumes as Shropshire Folklore: I've never seen a copy of Volume 1 for sale and Volume 2, only once. But (re-told) selections have been published - Jean Hughes' Shropshire Folklore Ghosts and Witchcraft and Karen Lowe's Witches and Warriors. At the time of writing W & W is still available and Folklore Ghosts and Witchcraft is pretty easy to find secondhand.

The Handbook of Folklore was reprinted in 1995 and this is still readily available.

Last updated: 28 Feb 2006