FOLKLORISTS OF AUSTRALIA
A Biographical Chronicle
This is a historical listing of deceased people (not only Australians) who undertook a range of folklore related activities in various parts of the country, including fieldwork, publishing, writing, drawing, photography, videography and filming, archiving, public speaking and performing. Their combined work is an irreplaceable contribution to Australian society, history and culture.
The Chronicle has two main aims:
TO provide a historical register of important work done by many, often unrecognised, collectors, researchers, writers, archivists and performers
TO provide links to their collections, papers and other relevant resources available online (mainly)
The study and collection of ‘folklore’ has never been well understood in Australia. While most other countries have formal entities in universities, archives and scholarly organisations and networks that engage with traditional culture/s, Australia has never embraced this endeavour in any official manner. Most folklore collecting and research has been carried out by individuals and/or interested private organisations, such as the Sydney Bush Music Club and the Victorian Folklore Society, among others.
There have been sporadic academic activities and some institutions, notably the National Library of Australia, have established archives for the preservation of collected materials. These tend to focus on specific aspects of folklore, such as the Australian Children’s Folklore Collection at Museum Victoria and the WA Folklore Archive at Curtin University, Perth. All are obviously invaluable actors in what is a very broad space, encompassing some aspects of Indigenous tradition, English language traditions as well as those of the many other cultural groups who have migrated to Australia.
One consequence of the largely private and community nature of folklore research is that there are many important collections in private rather than public hands. This makes them less accessible, if accessible at all. Many are known only to one or two individuals. It is unlikely that such collections will survive unless they end up in some public repository.
With this situation in mind, this listing provides some links to known collections and other relevant materials that can be publicly accessed. It contains only the work of deceased folklorists, though most work by living folklorists available in public institutions will turn up through using this resource.
The list is very much a work in progress and open to addition and amendment. All contributions will be acknowledged. Please email Graham Seal at g.seal@curtin.edu.au
NOTES
For further information about the collections, preservation and study of folklore in Australia please refer to: 'Fifty Years of Folk and Lore' (recording) https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/230501845.
Some print resources, dated but still useful:
The Oxford Companion to Australian Folklore (edited by Gwenda Beed Davey and Graham Seal)
The Hidden Culture (Graham Seal)
Our Living Heritage: Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Folklife in Australia (Hugh Anderson, Gwenda Beed Davey and Keith McKenry)
See also Australian Folklore journal, online and archived from 1987 (Number 1) at https://journals.kvasirpublishing.com/af/index
