(b Melrose, 8 Aug 1858; d Dropmore, nr Canterbury, 22 Aug 1929). English folksong collector and scholar. The great-granddaughter of John Broadwood (1732–1812), founder of the piano firm, and daughter of Henry Fowler Broadwood (1811–93), she spent her youth at the family home at Lyne, Sussex, where she developed an interest in local folksong. Inspired by her uncle, John Broadwood (1798–1864), she reissued his collection of folksongs, Old English Songs (1843) with H.F. Birch Reynardson as Sussex Songs (1890). She also travelled with Baring-Gould to Cornwall, to collect folksongs, and collaborated with J.A. Fuller Maitland to publish English County Songs (1893), thus establishing herself as a key figure in the folksong revival.
Her arrival in London (1894) precipitated a greater involvement with musical life, especially early music for which her voice was well suited. She also flourished as an amateur singer in charitable concerts. She continued her work on folksong, both arranging songs for performance by singers such as Plunket Greene, and composing some of her own in a similar style, with encouragement from Liza Lehmann and Arthur Somervell. In 1898 she was a founder member of the Folk-Song Society, becoming its honorary secretary (1904) and editor (1908), applying high standards of scholarship with colleagues Frank Kidson, Anne Gilchrist, Fuller Maitland and Cecil Sharp. Her own account of her experiences as a collector inspired Percy Grainger to join the society in 1905.
Although devoted to folksong, Broadwood maintained close contact with the musical establishment. She was much in demand as an adjudicator of singing from 1896, having previously met the music festival pioneer Mary Wakefield (1853–1910), and was later involved with Vaughan Williams's Leith Hill Music Festival. She remained an active musician and scholar to the end of her life, succeeding Tennyson as President of the Folk-Song Society in December 1928.
ed., with H.F. Birch Reynardson: Sussex Songs (London, 1890)
ed., with J.A. Fuller Maitland: English County Songs (London, 1893)
English Traditional Songs and Carols (London, 1908/R)
L.E. Broadwood: ‘On the Collecting of English Folk-Song’, PRMA, xxxi (1904–5), 89–109
M. Dean-Smith, ed.: ‘Letters to Lucy Broadwood’, JEFDSS, ix (1964), 233–68
E. Bassin: ‘Lucy Broadwood, 1858–1929: her Contribution to the Collection and Study of Gaelic Traditional Song’, Scottish Studies, ix (1965), 145–52
V. Gammon: ‘Folk Song Collecting in Sussex and Surrey, 1843–1914’, History Workshop Journal, x (1980), 61–89
D. de Val: ‘The Transformed Village: Lucy Broadwood and Folksong’, British Music and Culture, 1785–1914, ed. C. Bashford and L. Langley (Oxford, forthcoming)
D. Wainwright: Broadwood by Appointment: a History (London, 1982)
DOROTHY DE VAL