P.Millington (1992)

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OBITUARY - MAURICE WILLMORE BARLEY - 19th Aug.1909 to 23rd June 1991

Maurice Barley was a major force in promoting the local history and archaeology
of the East Midlands, and made major impressions on folklore and folklife
studies with his work on Plough Plays and English vernacular architecture.

Born in 1909, Maurice Barley was brought up in Lincoln. His father was a
prominent member of the Workers' Educational Association, and this was an
important influence upon his youth, and indeed his later career. He studied
history at Reading, and left in 1932 with a Dip.Ed. He met his wife-to-be
Diana while at Reading, and they married in 1934.

After University, he taught at a school in Grimsby, until 1935 when he joined
the Department of Local History at University College, Hull. His income came
from teaching local history and archaeology in adult education classes in
Lindsey and East Yorkshire. He lived south of the Humber estuary in West
Halton. Much of this teaching was done through the auspices of the W.E.A.

It was at this time that he came to know Ethel Rudkin, a figure well known to
folklorists. She reinforced Maurice Barley's interest in anything and
everything that could relate to local history. His numerous publications
include papers on slate headstones, old varieties of apple, archaeology and of
course architecture and Plough Plays.

During the Second World War, he was in the Ministry of Information, living in
Oxfordshire. After the War in 1946, he joined the Extra Mural Department at
Nottingham University, and moved to live in the Old Hall at North Muskham. He
operated in Nottinghamshire in similar a way to his teaching days with Hull, out
of which came a whole army of enthusiastic local historians around the county.
He continued as Organising Tutor of the University College in Rural
Nottinghamshire until 1962.

In the 1950s Maurice Barley "taught himself archaeology" to use his own words.
In 1962, he became a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Classics, and Reader
in Archaeology in 1965. He was appointed Nottingham's first professor of
Archaeology in 1971. He organised major excavations on the Roman fort and town
at Great Casterton, Rutland, the mediaeval borough at Torksey, as well as minor
excavations in Nottingham and Newark.

At Nottingham, he developed his interest in mediaeval and vernacular
architecture, for which he was awarded an M.A. in 1952. Over the years
he published articles on numerous buildings, and the book for which he will be
most remembered is "The English Farmhouse and Cottage", published in 1961.

Maurice Barley retired from the University in 1974, but continued to be
academically active. He was prominent in quite a number of august bodies and
trusts, both local and national, and was a successful campaigner on
conservation issues.

The local organisations with which he was associated included; the
Nottinghamshire Local History Council, the Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire,
The Nottingham Civic Society, and the Nottinghamshire Building Preservation
Trust. Nationally, he was secretary and president of the Council for British
Archaeology, a Commissioner to the Royal Commission on Historical Documents,
and Chairman of the York Archaeological Trust from its conception in 1971 until
1990.

In his last few years, he encountered serious illness, but he refused to let it
slow him down. Even in his final week he was correcting proofs of articles and
looking forward to the publication of his autobiography.

In the world of folklore, Maurice Barley will be most remembered for his
seminal work on Plough Monday folk plays. He started collecting material in
the 1930s in Lincolnshire, and continued in the late 1940s and early 1950s in
Nottinghamshire. He mostly collected his material from or through the members
of his evening classes, although he did make one or two special forays for
local periodicals and for the B.B.C. In this way, he amassed a substantial
quantity of material. E.K.Chambers' "English Folk Play" published in 1933
listed 17 known Plough Plays. When Maurice Barley published his main paper
"Plough Plays in the East Midlands" in 1953, he had quadrupled this number to
around 70, and a couple of dozen more were added in supplementary publications
in 1954 and 1955.

"Plough Plays in the East Midlands" remains a landmark paper for English folk
play studies. It consisted of solid readable description and comparative
analysis of texts, costumes, etc. His historical discussion was based solely on
archival documents - e.g. mentions of ploughs and Plough Lights in churches. In
a similar way, he discussed the apparent link between Plough Monday and the
Danelaw, although with no firm conclusion.

This paper stands out from its contemporaries because it ignored all the
fashionable theories of the day for pagan fertility ritual origins for the
plays. There were no general or speculative parallels made between actions in
the plays and the rites of pre-Christian religions or modern customs in the
Balkans. Indeed, he was able to demonstrate the exceptional background of the
Revesby Morris Dancers' play, which had hitherto been used as an important
piece of evidence by the ritualists.

Maurice Barley's scientific approach may have been too factual for the folklore
establishment. The paper was published with several footnotes added by the
editor which the author did not see until after it had been published. In
particular, there was a half-page footnote by Douglas Kennedy putting the party
line on the ritual origins of the plays. Maurice Barley felt quite rightly
offended by this treatment. Consequently, he ceased active collecting, although
some further information was sent to him by other folklorists, which formed the
basis of his later published Addenda.

Fortunately, Maurice Barley's interest in Plough Plays did not quite end there.
In the early 1960s, he helped to organise a series of essay competitions on old
village life, run by the Notts. Local History Council. Plough Monday was
included in the list of topics regarded as suitable for inclusion in the
essays. As a result, over 30 essays mentioned Plough Monday to a lesser or
greater extent. These are deposited with the Nottinghamshire Archives Office.

Maurice Barley deposited copies of his collection with the Vaughan-Williams
Memorial Library, and with other libraries in the East Midlands. He passed his
original material to the Manuscripts Department of Nottingham University
Library in 1969.

Regular requests for meetings from folk play scholars, including myself, were
consistently deflected with polite referals to his collections. I was
therefore highly delighted when Prof. Barley approached me in the autumn of
1990 to provide information for an update of his paper. This was to go into a
collection of updates to papers on a wide variety of topics. I hope this may
still be published.

Regretably, I only had a couple of meetings with Prof. Barley, but his energy
and enthusiasm were as bright as ever, even at the age of 81. I obtained much
of the information for this obituary during these meetings. I am also grateful
for further information provided by Dr. John Samuels of Nottingham University.


January 1992 Peter Millington,
 
[-- Address redacted --]

References:

M.W.Barley (1953) Plough Plays in the East Midlands
 J. English Folk Dance & Song Soc., Dec.1953, Vol.7, No.2, pp.68-95

M.W.Barley (1954) Addenda et Corrigenda : Plough Plays in the East Midlands
 J. English Folk Dance & Song Soc., Dec.1954, Vol.7, No.3, pp.184

M.W.Barley (1955) Varia Atque Breviora : Plough Plays in the East Midlands :
 Further Notes
 J. English Folk Dance & Song Soc., Dec.1955, Vol.7, No.4, pp.249-252

M.W.Barley (1961) The English Farmhouse and Cottage
 London, Routledge, 1961

E.K.Chambers (1933) The English Folk Play
 Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1933

[-- Author's submitted text --]