The Katharine Briggs Lecture and Book Award 2024

Dr Doc Rowe, ‘Transmission, Transformation and Trends: Historic and Contemporary Approaches to our Cultural Traditions’  

Tuesday 12 Nov 2024, 6:00pm – 10:00pm 

Cecil Sharp House, 2 Regent’s Park Road, London NW1 7AY

The Folklore Society’s annual Katharine Briggs evening is jointly hosted this year by The Folklore Society and The English Folk Dance and Song Society.  

The Katharine Briggs Lecture will be given by the legendary folklore collector Dr Doc Rowe. Doc has been photographing and recording seasonal events across the UK for 60 years, including Padstow May Day, the Whittlesey Straw Bear and the Queensferry Burryman (at which he has the honour of being the official dresser of the Burryman, placing the first burr patch). In this time, Doc has amassed an invaluable archive of notes, photographs, audio recordings and video tapes. In 2023, crowdfunding by Fifth Column Films to digitise some of Doc’s video footage for a documentary about his work surpassed its goal, and Doc’s entire collection of moving image material has now been digitised thanks to the money raised. This represents only a small percentage of the archive, however, with photographic material and thousands of hours of audio as yet undigitised.  

Doc was awarded The English Folk Dance and Song Society’s Gold Badge in 2006 and the following year, 2007, he was awarded The Folklore Society’s Coote Lake Medal. He is a member of The Folklore Society’s Council. In this illustrated lecture, Doc will share some of his photographs and film clips from six decades of documenting seasonal events, song and dance performances. 

The Katharine Briggs Award: After the lecture, the Folklore Society President, Prof. David Hopkin, will read out the judges’ report on the books short-listed for this year’s award and will announce the winner. All the books entered for the award will be on display for our guests to browse.

There will also be a special presentation of The Folklore Society’s Coote Lake Medal to Professor Ronald Hutton for his outstanding contribution to folklore scholarship; there will be music; there will be snacks and drinks; and we will raise a toast to Doc Rowe for his imminent 80th birthday. 

Tickets are £6, or £4 for FLS and EFDSS members with the discount code, which can be found at https://folklore-society.com/members-only and has been circulated by email to members of each society. Free Personal Assistant ticket with purchase of Access ticket. 

Book your ticket at https://www.efdss.org/whats-on/61-conferences/14065-katharine-briggs-2024 or by telephone to +44(0) 207 485 2206 or from the box office at Cecil Sharp House, 2 Regent’s Park Road, London NW1 7AY