THE AUSTRALIAN FOLK REVIVAL: AN HISTORICAL CHRONOLOGY - Brian Samuels

THE AUSTRALIAN FOLK REVIVAL: AN HISTORICAL CHRONOLOGY

2nd Edition, June 2011 

Brian Samuels

This chronology is designed to provide an outline of some of the key events in the development of the appreciation and study of Australia’s folk culture as defined by what is generally termed the ‘folk revival’ (see below) that began in the 1950s. It does not pretend to be comprehensive. Indeed, several topics have been excluded to avoid making the chronology too long and overwhelming the reader with detail. At the State level it focuses on early groups and umbrella organizations and largely excludes folk festivals and folk organizations devoted solely to dance, which each warrant chronologies of their own. With publications it focuses on key early ones and those that provide an overview of the field. The major topics excluded are bush ballads, which have generated a very large literature of their own that predates the folk revival by a long stretch, and collections of yarns. Given that the terms  ‘bush ballads’ and ‘bush songs’ are often confused, Graham Jenkin’s analysis of the distinction between them in the first chapter of his Songs of the Great Australian Balladists (Rigby, Adelaide, 1978) is very helpful.

The entry for the term ‘folk revival’ in GB Davey & G Seal A Guide to Australian Folklore: from Ned Kelly to Aeroplane Jelly (Kangaroo Press, NSW, 2003) reads in part as follows. ‘In the 1950s there was an upsurge of popular interest in folk traditions … in several countries, including the United States and Australia. Common explanations for this upsurge link its appearance with the end of World War II, a growing appreciation of the culture of “the common man” and, in Australia at least, a concern for national identity in the face of international (particularly American) mass culture influences. The “revival” encompassed several types of action which represented new developments in Australian cultural life, namely field recording of folksongs, instrumental music and stories; publication of “bush ballads” derived mostly from printed sources, and the establishment of folk clubs and folklore societies.’

1905 AB Paterson (ed) The Old Bush Songs: Composed and sung in the Bushranging, Digging and Overlanding Days (Angus and Robertson, Sydney), Australia’s first published collection of bush songs [55 of them], appeared. It did not contain any music. [The cover title was Old Bush Songs and the ‘The’ was dropped from the title page in the 4th edition. The final (8th) edition over Paterson’s name appeared in 1932.] There have been some expanded editions since, most notably D Stewart and N Keesing (eds) Old Bush Songs (1957; several reprints) and a centenary edition by W Fahey and G Seal (eds) Old Bush Songs (ABC Books, Sydney, 2005). The latter (p6) notes that ‘Banjo’ Paterson started advertising for songs in the Sydney Bulletin in 1895 and outlines the publishing history of the book on pp31-32. [See also H Anderson ‘Some Literary Sources for Old Bush Songs’, Australian Folklore no 12 (1997), pp1-39]

1950 Old Australian Bush Ballads, ‘collected by Vance Palmer’ with ‘music restored by Margaret Sutherland’, was published by Allan & Co. It contained 13 songs, and is notable for being the first booklet of Australian folk songs to include music. Palmer’s Preface recorded: ‘Versions of many of the ballads included have already appeared in “Old Bush Songs”; others I have gathered gradually from various quarters; and Margaret Sutherland has arranged music for them, calling upon her own instinct for appropriate melody when there was no one who remembered the original tunes’.

1950 Ron Edwards founded The Galley Press, soon to be renamed The Rams Skull Press, which was to publish ‘more original material in the fields of Australian folk song and bush craft than all other publishers put together’. [K McKenry ‘Ron Edwards: The Man with the Ram’s Skull’, Australian Folklore no 7 (1992), p46]

1951 John Manifold published the Bandicoot Ballads, four broadsides of both words and music. Ron Edwards, who printed the next 12, later wrote: ‘They created quite a bit of interest at the time, and were I feel, an important factor in the revival that followed. Ballads 5-8 were published in 1953, when I had returned to Victoria and was operating the Ram’s Skull Press, Numbers 9-16 came out in 1955’. [‘Bandicoot Ballads and Other Folk Song Books’, Australian Tradition vol 3, no 3 (October 1966), p5]

1952 John Meredith and some friends formed The Bushwhackers (not to be confused with the later band The Bushwackers). [Chris Kempster ‘The Bushwhackers: Some recollections’ (2002) on Mark Gregory’s ‘Australian Folk Songs’ website and K McKenry ‘John Meredith: A Biographical Sketch’ in K Bradley (ed) John Meredith, a tribute (National Library of Australia, Canberra, 2006), pp12-13]

1953 Burl Ives’ Folio of Australian Folk Songs ‘collected and arranged by Dr Percy Jones’ was published by Southern Music Publishing Company, Sydney, and contained 10 songs. Jones had begun collecting in the 1940s, assisted by journalist CS Waight’s daily column in the Melbourne Sun-News Pictorial, but unlike ‘Banjo’ Paterson, had transcribed some of the tunes. When the American Ives toured Australia for the Australian Broadcasting Commission and expressed an interest in Australian folk songs, he was directed to Jones. [See ‘The Minstrel Boy’, an anonymous article in the weekly magazine People, 3 December 1952, pp15-17, K McKenry ‘Percy Jones: Australia’s Reluctant Folklorist’, Overland no 186 (2007), pp25-33 and his Australia’s Lost Folk Songs: The Treasures that Slipped Through Percy Jones’ Fingers (The Rams Skull Press, Kuranda, 2008)]

1953 Dick Diamond’s Reedy River, a musical drama that included Australian folk songs, was produced by New Theatre, Melbourne, and subsequently interstate. P Parsons & V Chance (eds) Companion to Theatre in Australia (Currency Press, Paddington, 1995) says it ‘dominated New Theatre’s repertoire for four years from 1953, playing to an estimated 450 000 people …’ (p401). [New Theatre, Sydney, produced two editions of the “Reedy River” Song Book (cover title) in 1954 and 1960.]

1954 The Australian Folklore Society held its inaugural meeting at John Meredith’s house at Heathcote, near Sydney, on 16 January following an initial meeting in December, but its journal Speewa only lasted two years (1954-55) and the Society itself ceased in about 1958. [See Speewa vol 1 no 1 (April 1954), John Meredith’s ‘Introduction’ in John Meredith & Hugh Anderson Folk Songs of Australia and the Men and Women Who Sang Them (Ure Smith, Sydney, 1967) and ‘Hunting Down the Wild Colonial Boy’ in People, 11 January 1956, pp23-6]

1954 The Bush Music Club was founded in Sydney as a way of managing the large number of people who wanted to join the Bushwhackers. [See John Meredith’s ‘Introduction’ in John Meredith & Hugh Anderson Folk Songs of Australia and the Men and Women Who Sang Them (Ure Smith, Sydney, 1967) and K McKenry ‘John Meredith: A Biographical Sketch’ in K Bradley (ed) John Meredith, a tribute (National Library of Australia, Canberra, 2006), p13] Its aims were ‘to popularize Australian folk song, and to encourage the composition of a new kind of song – one that is traditional in style but contemporary in theme’. [Singabout vol 1 no 1 (Summer 1956), p19]

1955 The Folk Lore Society of Victoria was formed in early August at a meeting of about 40 enthusiasts. The Hon. President was Alan Marshall, Vice-President Norm O’Connor and Secretary Wendy Lowenstein. [‘Folk Revival – the Story of the Victorian Folk Music Club and Folk Lore Society’, Australian Tradition no 28 (June 1972), pp19-20. See also Ian Turner ‘Ten Years of Australian Folklore’, Australian Tradition vol 3 no 1 (March 1966), pp7-8.]

1955 Colonial Ballads (The Rams Skull Press, Fern Tree Gully, Victoria), edited by Hugh Anderson with music arranged by Ron Edwards, was published: the first substantial book of Australian folk songs [73 items] to include music. [See also R Edwards ‘The Music for Colonial Ballads’, Australian Folklore Society Journal, no 24 (January 1994), p478. Revised and enlarged editions appeared in 1962 and 1970, and that 3rd edition was retitled The Story of Australian Folksong.]

1955 The first Australian Folklore Festival was organized by the Australian Folklore Society and held in Sydney on 3 September. [See John Meredith’s Letter to the Editor in Stringybark & Greenhide vol 6 no 1 (1985) and Singabout vol 5 no 2 (1964), pp12-14.]

1956 Singabout, the magazine of the [Sydney] Bush Music Club, was first published. [Ceased in 1967]

By 1956 The Queensland Bush Music Club was formed. [Singabout vol 1 no 3 (Winter 1956), p16, reported that The Queensland Bush Telegraph, the Club’s ‘first official monthly bulletin’, had been issued.] A profile of Stan Arthur in The Folk Rag No. 3 (October 1996) records that the Moreton Bay Bushwhackers ‘sprang’ from the play Reedy River being performed in Queensland and that the band ‘gradually formed The Queensland Bush Music Club and then later The Queensland Folklore Society’. [Reedy River was staged in Brisbane for several weeks from September 1954. The Folklore Society was formed by 1961, when S Arthur (ed) To Wear a Convict’s Chains: A Collection of Convict and Transportation Ballads and Songs was ‘issued by the Publications Committee in conjunction with the Archives Committee of the Queensland Folk Lore Society’. Note that the spelling of folklore/folk lore is inconsistent.]

1956 Wattle Recordings, founded by Sydney architect Peter Hamilton in 1954 or 1955 (sources differ), released its first records of Australian folk music and ‘gave a further impetus to the work of collecting and popularizing folk song’. [John Meredith’s ‘Introduction’ in John Meredith & Hugh Anderson Folk Songs of Australia and the Men and Women Who Sang Them (Ure Smith, Sydney, 1967), p18.] Its final record was released in 1963. Artists recorded in that time included The Bushwhackers, The Rambleers, The Moreton Bay Bushwhackers, The Bandicoots and AL Lloyd. [Edgar Waters’ entry in the ‘Oxford Companion’, pp366-8] For details of some of Wattle’s recordings see Mark Gregory’s ‘Australian Folk Songs’ website http://folkstream.com/reviews/revival/wattle.html.

1956 Ron Edwards published The Overlander Songbook (The Rams Skull Press, Fern Tree Gully, Victoria), containing 58 songs. [After several editions and reprints, it culminated in Edwards’ 507 page The Big Book of Australian Folk Song (Rigby, Adelaide, 1976) containing words and music for 308 songs.]

1957 Hugh Anderson’s Australian Song Index, 1828-1956 was published by Ron Edwards’ Rams Skull Press. It contained 375 items. [It was followed by Edwards’ Index of Australian Folk Song 1857-70 (1971; 1,200 entries) and its four subsequent editions, culminating in Edwards’ 12 volume 6th edition of 2005, containing 4,680 entries. See his Introduction and preliminary pages to that edition for a potted history.]

1957 D Stewart and N Keesing (eds) Old Bush Songs and Rhymes of Colonial Times (Angus and Robertson, Sydney), an expanded version of AB Paterson’s Old Bush Songs (see entry for 1905 above), was first published.

By 1959 The Federation of Bush Music Groups was formed in Queensland with John Manifold as Chairman. In 1959 the Group produced the Queensland Centenary Pocket Songbook (Edwards & Shaw, Sydney), containing words and music for 30 ‘Old Bush Songs’.]

1959 The Victorian Bush Music Club was launched on 26 June. A Bushwhackers Band had been formed in Melbourne in 1955 and had appeared with great success in the second production of the play Reedy River. ‘After a change of name to the Billabong Band, the Band built up a keen audience of fans around Melbourne and began to hold regular monthly Singabouts to cater for them. Band members, along with some of their most enthusiastic followers, launched the Victorian Bush Music Club.’ [‘Victorian Folk Music Club Tenth Anniversary’, Australian Tradition no 20 (August 1969), p2] The Club’s name was changed to Victorian Folk Music Club in 1964. [S Andrews ‘Colonial-dance Revival’ in J Whiteoak & A Scott-Maxwell (eds) Currency Companion to Music & Dance in Australia (Currency House Inc, Strawberry Hills, NSW, 2003), p157]

1960 Gumsuckers’ Gazette was published jointly by the Victorian Bush Music Club and the Folk Lore Society of Victoria as their newsletter. [In 1963 it became a monthly magazine which included songs and in 1964 changed its name to Australian Tradition and appeared less frequently. The magazine ceased with the index issue (No 37, December 1975), but the name continued as the internal newsletter of the by then Victorian Folk Music Club.]

1961 Graham Jenkin founded the Tea and Damper Club at Wattle Park Teachers’ College ‘which became the major body in South Australia devoted to the preservation and dissemination of Australian folklore, music and verse. The club flourished for a decade’. [Bush Poetry website http://www.bushverse.com/jenkin/jenkin.html accessed 13 June 2010]

1963 The Western Australian Folksong Society was formed. [‘Inspired by the work of the Bush Music Clubs in the east, and determined “not to be left out of the national movement”, a handful of enthusiasts gathered together to form the Western Australian Folksong Society – a collection and preservation body – in August 1963.’ – Malcolm Turnbull ‘Recollections of the Folk Boom in Perth’ on Warren Fahey’s ‘Australian Folklore Unit’ website.]

1964 John Manifold’s Who Wrote the Ballads?: Notes on Australian folksong (Australasian Book Society, Sydney) and The Penguin Australian Song Book (Penguin Books, Ringwood, Victoria) were published. [See R Hall JS Manifold (University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1978)]

1964 L Long & G Jenkin Favourite Australian Bush Songs (Rigby, Adelaide) was published.

1964 The Folk Lore Council of Australia was formed in Victoria by Francis & Margaret Ashburner, Maryjean Officer, William & Rose Sayers and Murray Woods [‘Oxford Companion’ p131] ‘for the purpose of collecting, preserving and disseminating the Folk Lore and Oral Traditions of Australia and of studying similar material from other countries’. [Back cover of the Council’s first book, A Collection of Australian Folk Songs and Traditional Ballads (Melbourne, c1966)] The Council disbanded in 1994-95.

1966 The Port Phillip Folk Festival Committee was formed in February. [See Shirley Andrews’ letter to the editor in Australian Tradition no 14 (September 1967), p32 and 1967 entry for the Festival below] The Folk Song and Dance Society of Victoria was ‘an outgrowth’ of the Committee and later developed ‘Folk Victoria’ as its ‘trading arm’. [Folkvine vol 20 no 8 (September 1995), p1]

1966 Northern (from 1968 National) Folk, edited by Ron Edwards, was published in Cairns by the Cairns Folk & Jazz Centre and the Folk Club (Townsville). [Ceased with no 45, published by the Cairns Folk Club in 1971]

1966 The National Folk Festival Trust was established. It evolved into the Australian Folk Trust, which disbanded in 1995 and was superseded by the Folk Alliance Australia in 1996. [‘Oxford Companion’ p22]

1966 ‘The Folklore and Folk Music Society of South Australia started from an advertisement in the newspaper inserted by Stan Armstrong, Eric Brooks and Rob McCarthy, inviting all and sundry to “an informal folksinging night!” The gathering being a success, a committee was formed, which added Bill Rigdon, John Munro, Pauline Axford and Elizabeth Robertson to the above three.’ [Australian Tradition no 15 (December 1967), inside front cover, summarizing a report by Elizabeth Robertson in Northern Folk no 17 (September 1967), which said the Society started ‘thirteen months ago’.] The Society faded away in the 1980s.

1967 John Meredith’s and Hugh Anderson’s Folk Songs of Australia and the Men and Women Who Sang Them (Ure Smith, Sydney) was published. The Preface (p8) states that ‘the compilers have been at some trouble to surround and enrich the items by extensively quoting reminiscences, by including details of source, and by introducing the necessary background material. In this way it is hoped that the songs will glitter like rough diamonds in a suitably natural setting’. [Keith McKenry advises that while the book gives its year of publication as 1967, it didn’t appear until 1968. Volume two was published in 1987 – see below.]

1967 The Port Phillip District Folk Music Festival, effectively the first National Folk Festival, was held in Melbourne on the weekend of 11 & 12 February. ‘The National’ has been held annually since then. The next year’s was also held in Melbourne, but on the Australia Day weekend. It then rotated around the States and Territories until 1991 (Adelaide). It has been held in Canberra since 1992. [See Shirley Andrews’ letter to the editor in Australian Tradition no 14 (September 1967), p32 and her ‘How our National Folk Festival Started’ linked to the ‘About’ page of the Victorian Folk Music Club website.]

c1970 The Central Australian Folk Society was established in Alice Springs. [J Corfield  email 15 May 2011 and J Tuzewski ‘Folk Club Fun’, Alice Springs News, 29 July 1998).

1970 The New South Wales Folk Federation was established in the wake of the success of the Port Jackson Folk Festival (the 4th National Folk Festival) held earlier in the year. [See D Watson ‘Sydney Folk News’, Music Maker, June 1970, p35]

1970 Warren Fahey ‘formed a “one-man-band organization”, the Australian Folklore Unit, to collect, research, write about and popularize Australian folklore’. [‘Oxford Companion’ p115; see also the Unit website, established in 2002.]

1970 The Monaro Folk Music Society was established in Canberra. (The word ‘Music’ was dropped from the Society’s name in 2001.) [See D Meyers A Score and a Half of Folk: Thirty Years of the Monaro Folk Music Society Inc. (Sefton Publications, ACT, 2004)]

1970 The Western Australian Folk Federation was established in November to facilitate hosting the National Folk Festival (achieved in 1978). It established a Western Australian Folk Festival in 1971. [Jeff Corfield, Lionel Cranfield, David Hults and Geoff Morgan – emails 10-17 May 2011]

1971 The South Australian Folk Federation was formed as a result of the decision for South Australia to host the National Folk Festival at Flinders University on the Australia Day weekend of 1971. The South Australian Folk Federation Newsletter No. 6 (August 1972) states that ‘This issue marks the end of the first year of the SAFF …’ but note that issue no. 1 (October 1971) says that the Federation ‘ran’ the Festival, while Australian Tradition no. 24 (December 1970) referred to the ‘Adelaide Folk Festival Committee’ as the organizing body. [The name SAFF changed to Folk Federation of South Australia between April 1974 and 9 January 1975, when it incorporated under that name.]

1971 The Top End Folk Club was established in Darwin. [See Stringybark & Greenhide vol 3 no 2 (May 1981), pp20-21]

By 1973 The Queensland Folk Federation was established. It was created by the committee formed to run the Moreton Bay Folk Festival of 1969 (the third National Folk Festival) later deciding to change its name to the Queensland Folk Federation. [Mary Brettell and Anne Infante – email 29 July 2010] The Federation died in 1983 and was re-established in 1985.

c1973 The Top Half Folk Federation was established. [Peter Bate – email 11 May 2011]

1973 The first conference for field-workers in Australian folklore was initiated by Warren Fahey and held at the University of Sydney 17-18 November. [S Andrews ‘Field workers in Folklore have their first Conference’, Australian Tradition no 33 (December 1973), pp28-29]

1974 Larrikin Records was established by Warren Fahey. [By the time he sold it to Festival Records in 1995 the company had released over 500 Australian recordings. See ‘The Larrikin Label’ on his ‘Australian Folklore Unit’ website.]

1974 S Andrews Take Your Partners: Traditional Social Dancing in Colonial Australia (Victorian Folk Music Club, Melbourne) was published under that name and also as a double issue of Australian Tradition no’s 34 & 35 (June 1974). A second edition appeared in 1976 and a revised and enlarged third (hardback) edition, Take Your Partners: Traditional Dancing in Australia (Hyland House, Melbourne) was published in 1979. [It was later supplemented by volumes one, two and three of Collector’s Choice (short title), collections of dance music compiled by Peter Ellis and published by the Victorian Folk Music Club in 1986, 1987 and 1988.]

1978 N Challingsworth Dancing down the Years: The Romantic Century in Australia (The Craftsman Press, Melbourne) was published. [It was later supplemented by her Australia’s Dancing Heritage: Stories of the 19th Century (Go Dancing Publications, Melbourne, 1994).]

1978 The first National Folk Directory 1978/79 was compiled and published by the Australian Folk Trust. With the 1982/83 edition it was renamed ‘Australian’ instead of ‘National’ and from 1997 has been published by the Folk Alliance Australia.

1978 Hugh and Dawn Anderson founded Red Rooster Press, which went on to publish ‘many folklore studies that would never have seen the shelves of libraries and folklorists …’ [G Seal ‘Hugh and Dawn Anderson’, Australian Folklore no 22 (2007), p3. See also ‘Red Rooster Press, Stringybark & Greenhide vol 2 no 6 (December 1980), p13]

1979 ‘Sunday Folk’, produced and presented by David Mulhallen, was first broadcast on ABC-FM radio (lasted until 1987). [‘Radio and television programmes’ in the ‘Oxford Companion’]

1979 The Australian Folklore Society (the second to bear that name – see 1955 above) was formed, with membership limited to collectors. It began publishing the Australian Folklore Society Journal under the editorship of Ron Edwards in 1984. [Ceased with issue no 60 in 2007]

1979 The Australian Children’s Folklore Collection was established at the Institute of Early Childhood Development in Melbourne by June Factor and Gwenda Davey. [Oxford Companion’ p22] It has been housed at Museum Victoria since 1999.

1979 Stringybark & Greenhide, billed as the ‘Folk Magazine of Australia’, was first published out of Newcastle by Lester Grace and Cecily Burns and others. [Ceased 1986]

1979 Van Demonian Folk Association established 29 July. [Stringybark & Greenhide vol 1 no 2 (1979), p5, and Beth Sowter – email 15 August 2010]

1981 The Australian Children’s Folklore Newsletter (biannual) was founded by June Factor and Gwenda Davey. [Renamed Play and Folklore in 1997]

1983 G Seal (ed) Australian Folk Resources: A Select Guide and Preliminary Bibliography (Australian Folk Trust, Paddington, Queensland) was published. [A revised edition containing additional material by Ron Edwards was published for the Trust by the Rams Skull Press, Kuranda, Queensland, in 1988.]

1984 The First National Folklore Conference was organized by the Australian Folk Trust (AFT). [2nd 1986, 3rd 1988, 4th 1990, 5th 1992 and 6th 1994 (5th & 6th called ‘Folklife’)] Volumes of proceedings were subsequently published for each of them. Following the demise of the AFT the conference was continued by the Australian Folklore Association (7th 1996, 8th ‘Folklore/Folklife’ 2000), and some conference papers were published in the journal Australian Folklore. [Similarly titled conferences began again in 2005 – see below.]

1985 The Western Australian Folklore Archive was established at the Western Australian Institute of Technology (WAIT) by Graham Seal as a repository for the fieldwork projects of the WAIT (later Curtin University of Technology) students enrolled in a Folklore unit as part of the Bachelor of Arts in Australian Studies course. Its role was subsequently expanded. [See http://john.curtin.edu.au/folklore/about.html]

1986 The weekly radio program Music Deli was first broadcast on ABC Radio in July and was presented by Paul Petran and Stephen Snelleman. It has continued to the present, with folk music a continuing presence, and covers ‘a wide variety of music styles focusing on live performances recorded in studios and at concerts and festivals around Australia’. [ABC Radio National website]

1986 The Tasmanian Folk Federation was established on 13 December at a meeting at Ross.  On 9 February 1987 the name was changed to the Folk Federation of Tasmania Inc to prevent confusion with the Tasmanian Folk Festival and the Tasmanian Farmers Federation. [Beth Sowter – email 15 August 2010]

1987 Folklife: our living heritage (Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra), the Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Folklife in Australia, was published. [The Committee comprised Hugh Anderson (chair), Gwenda Davey and Keith McKenry. Its recommendations were never acted on by the Commonwealth Government.]

1987 Australian Folklore, a scholarly journal, was established by Graham Seal and David Hults and published by the Centre for Australian Studies at the Curtin University of Technology, Perth (and from 1992 by the Australian Folklore Association).

1987 ‘On the Wallaby Track’, produced and presented by David Mulhallen and Murray Jennings, began being broadcast on ABC-FM radio (lasted until 1988). [David Mulhallen – letter 24 April 2011]

1987 J Meredith, R Covell & P Brown Folk Songs of Australia and the men and women who sang them Volume 2 (New South Wales University Press, Kensington) was published. Covell and Brown’s introduction noted that ‘… this volume is more than a collection; it is a primary source for the documentation and understanding of traditional Australian music and music-making…’ (p2). 

1987 A forum on ‘The Collecting of Folk Music in Australia’ was held at the University of New South Wales 4-6 December. The report of the forum, J Stubington (ed) Collecting Folk Music in Australia (University of NSW, Kensington, 1989) includes useful profiles of the participants and their interests.

1988 The Australian Folklore Association was formed at the Third National Folklore Conference held at the National Library of Australia in Canberra as a result of discussion at the ‘The Collecting of Folk Music in Australia’ forum. Its aims as specified in the constitution were: to promote the collection, preservation and study of folklore in Australia; to foster the discussion and dissemination of information about folklore in Australia; and to promote understanding and appreciation of the important social and cultural role of folklore in Australian society. [J Stubington (ed) Collecting Folk Music in Australia (University of NSW, Kensington, 1989), pp63-64]

1988 J Factor Captain Cook Chased a Chook: Children’s Folklore in Australia (Penguin Books Australia, Ringwood, Victoria) was published.

1989 G Seal The Hidden Culture: Folklore in Australian Society (OUP, Melbourne), the first published textbook of Australian folklore, was released. [2nd edition Black Swan Press, Perth, 1998]

1990 The Victorian Folklife Association was established with State government funding as a not-for-profit cultural organization to enable individuals and organizations ‘to work together to preserve, promote and encourage awareness of the folklife and traditional cultures of the people of Victoria’. [Association website: still live in 2011] [The Association disbanded in 2003 when the funding was withdrawn.]

1991 ‘The Songs and Stories of Australia’, produced and presented by David Mulhallen, began being broadcast on ABC-FM radio. It lasted until 1994. [David Mulhallen – letter 24 April 2011]

1991 ‘The Pioneer Performer Series was initiated in October by Rob Willis of Forbes and David De Santi of Wollongong and supported by the Wongawilli Colonial Dance Club Inc. from the Illawarra region of NSW … to present the tunes, songs, poetry and stories of Australia's bush entertainers in publications and recordings.’ [Wongawilli Colonial Dance Club archived website]

1993 GB Davey & G Seal (eds) The Oxford Companion to Australian Folklore (OUP, Melbourne) was published.

1996 The Folk Alliance Australia was established in the wake of the Australian Folk Trust disbanding in 1995. [GB Davey & G Seal A Guide to Australian Folklore: from Ned Kelly to Aeroplane Jelly (Kangaroo Press, NSW, 2003, p114]

2001 The Australian Folklore Network was established and convened and coordinated through the Folklore Australia Research Unit at Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Western Australia. The Network arose from ‘the ongoing concerns of Australian folklore collectors, researchers and performers about the continued absence of a formal institution for the collection, study and dissemination of Australian folklore, in all its many varieties’. [Transmissions 1, January 2002 http://www.folklore-network.folkaustralia.com/tranjan.html]

2002 Trad&Now commenced publication as a quarterly magazine published by Donald Keys and edited by Dave De Santi. Its cover proclaimed it to be ‘The Australia-wide folk magazine celebrating culture, community and creativity’. [Became bi-monthly in June 2006 and close to monthly from February 2008]

2003 GB Davey & G Seal A Guide to Australian Folklore: from Ned Kelly to Aeroplane Jelly (Kangaroo Press, NSW) was published. 

2003 G Seal & R Willis (eds) Verandah Music: Roots of Australian Tradition (Curtin University Books, Fremantle) was published.

2005 G Smith Singing Australian: A History of Folk and Country Music (Pluto Press Australia, North Melbourne) was published.

2005 A ‘Folklore Collections’ conference was organized by the Australian Folklore Network, the National Library of Australia and the National Folk Festival and held at the National Library (and annually thereafter). [From 2006 known as the National Australian Folklore Conference.]

2005 P Ellis The Merry Country Dance: A description and social history of colonial and old time dance and music (The Bush Dance and Music Club of Bendigo and District, Bendigo) was published. [Reprinted ‘with minor corrections and addendum’ 2006]

2006 C Sullivan Castles in the Air: Ideology, Myth & the Australian Folk Revival (Baalgammon Music & Folklore, Lismore, NSW) was published.

SOURCES: This chronology has been compiled principally from published (printed and on-line) sources, supplemented by a few email enquiries to fill some gaps. Two key sources were Keith McKenry's 'Origins of the Australian Folk Revival', a tribute to the pioneer field collectors of the 1950s from a concert at National Folk Festival, Canberra, Friday 10 April 1997 (available on-line at http://folkstream.com/reviews/revival/origin.html and GB Davey & G Seal (eds) The Oxford Companion to Australian Folklore (OUP, Melbourne, 1993) [cited above as ‘Oxford Companion’]. GB Davey & G Seal A Guide to Australian Folklore: from Ned Kelly to Aeroplane Jelly (Kangaroo Press, NSW, 2003) was also useful, as were the numerous folk music and social dance entries in J Whiteoak & A Scott-Maxwell (eds) Currency Companion to Music & Dance in Australia (Currency House Inc, Strawberry Hills, NSW, 2003), some items in the ‘Articles’ section of Mark Gregory’s ‘Australian Folk Songs’ website http://folkstream.com/ and Malcolm Turnbull’s ‘The History of the Australian Folk Revival’ on Warren Fahey’s Australian Folklore Unit website. http://warrenfahey.com/revival.htm The on-line catalogues of State and University libraries were also quite useful, although it must be remembered that they do not contain all of their institutions’ holdings. I am also grateful to those individuals who responded to my emails regarding elusive foundation dates and other queries. My use of newsletters of the State and Territory Folk Federations and kindred bodies was largely limited to those readily accessible in my home State (South Australia), namely the Gumsuckers’ Gazette (1963), Australian Tradition (1964-75), Northern (later National) Folk (1966-71) and the variously named newsletters of the Folk Federation of South Australia (1971-2011).