Metadata: Leeds Archive of Vernacular Culture
Collection
- Country:
- United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
- Holding institution:
- The University of Leeds Cultural Collections & Galleries
- Holding institution (official language):
- The University of Leeds Cultural Collections & Galleries
- Postal address:
- The Brotherton Library, Woodhouse Ln, Woodhouse, Leeds LS2 9JT
- Phone number:
- 0113 343 5518
- Reference number:
- MS 1600
- Title:
- Leeds Archive of Vernacular Culture
- Title (official language):
- Leeds Archive of Vernacular Culture
- Creator/accumulator:
- Stewart Sanderson, University of Leeds
- Date(s):
- 1836/2003
- Language:
- English
- Hebrew
- Extent:
- 379 boxes; 888 audiocassettes; 841 gramophone discs; 5 reels cinefilm; 8 reels videotape; 2168 photographic prints; 620 negatives; 930 slides
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Photographic images
- Moving images
- Physical condition:
- Good
- Scope and content:
-
The Leeds Archive of Vernacular Culture comprises the combined multiple media holdings of the archives of the Survey of English Dialects (ca. 1946-1978) directed by Harold Orton, and the University of Leeds' Institute of Dialect and Folk Life Studies (1964-1983) directed by Stewart Sanderson. These contain printed, manuscript and photographic paper items, sound recordings held on gramophone disc, open reel and cassette audio tape formats, glass plate and plastic transparencies, video tapes, 16mm and 35mm films. The subject areas covered include custom and belief, traditional narrative, children's traditions, traditional music (vocal and instrumental), traditional drama and dance, material culture, crafts and work techniques, language and dialect.
Of particular note is the folk life research amongst the Jewish community in Leeds, conducted by Stewart Sanderson during his tenure as director for the Institute of Dialect and Folk Life Studies at the University of Leeds (LAVC/STA/1/1/4/2). This file includes copies of Sanderson’s research proposals, correspondence with Dr. Zvi Sofer on arrangements for his visit to Leeds as a guest lecturer (August 1965-April 1966); correspondence with Bernard Gillinson, and with Louis Saipe of the Leeds Jewish Representative Council on proposals for research into the Leeds Jewish community and Sofer's visit (November 1965-February 1966); correspondence with Stanley Burton, initially via the Vice Chancellor, on sound recordings made by Sofer during his visit and proposals for research into the Leeds Jewish community (April-May 1966); correspondence with Dr. Scheier Levenberg of the Jewish Agency of Israel on the research proposals (May-June 1966); ms., typed and photocopied items relating to the collection of data from Jewish informants in Leeds, including two pages of manuscript notes in Hebrew (undated); an invitation addressed to Sanderson to the Sixth World Congress of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem in 1973 (October 1972); correspondence and related papers concerning Dov Noy on a folklore project based at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, including correspondence from Tony Green in Sanderson's absence (October 1972-April 1973), and correspondence between Sanderson, Dov Noy and Edna Cheichelat the Ethnological Museum and Folklore Archives, Haifa, on proposals for collaborative research into Jewish folklore (June 1973 - August 1974). Related to this are 9 photographs taken by Sanderson (under Photographic Collections), including various images of Dr. Zvi Sofer on his visit to Leeds as a guest lecturer. There are also images of Sanderson and Sofer at Donisthorpe Hall, a Jewish old people's home in Leeds (LAVC/PHO/P).
There is further material relating to Sanderson's research at Donisthorpe Hall (LAVC/SRE/A633r), with various informants recorded singing Jewish songs and relating Jewish folk tales. Reverend Knopf and his wife sing an unidentified song (with piano accompaniment), composed by his father c. 1914; Reverend Knopp and his daughter sing a traditional Jewish song sung at table on the Sabbath; male sings (unaccompanied) an unidentified song; male and mixed chorus sing [2 unidentified], with accordion accompaniment; female talks about her family and a Passover meal; male relates a story about a poor family preparing for Easter; sings a song remembered from his childhood; biographical details; coming to England in 1913, career including tailoring; sings [unidentified]; tells religious stories; male talks about shops and the Market in Leeds; male informant tells a story of a Rabbi taking up a new post; Sarah Clayman sings 'The Flower' [in German]; female sings [5 unidentified] in German; Sarah Clayman sings [2 unidentified]; two females sing [2 unidentified]; Sophie Lyons describes coming to England aged eight, living in Leeds, brother's involvement in tailoring, memories of her home village in Russia; Betsy Lenin gives biographical information, and tells a story of a young boy and a game of marriage with a rich girl. Betsy Lenin continues with stories about a man and some laundry, and a woman and a long-absent husband.
This sub-collection is continued in LAVC/SRE/A634r. In this section Leizer Gold sings unidentified song; male sings unidentified song; male ( Rabbi Safer) relates an incident, and other information relating to Leeds; male relates an incident from World War One; Rabbi Safer talks of Yiddish boxers in Leeds; Leizer Gold makes reference to a [Russian] pogrom; Rabbi Safer talks about coming to live in Leeds in the 1930s/1940s; Mely Tayler gives biographical information, and talks [in English] about working in Russia during the Russian Revolution (reference to Red Sunday), coming to England, work, marriage, children, shop owning, visits to Israel, fund raising, the Jewish Club in Leeds; Leizer Gold speaks in Yiddish about the pogrom in Lithuania in 1906; Rabbi Safer relates an incident (in English) and relates a discussion he had in 1913 regarding the coming of war, and another prediction of the same in 1880; Leizer Gold speaks in Yiddish of the pogrom in Lithuania.
- Archival history:
- The Leeds Archive of Vernacular Culture (LAVC) was created by Stewart Sanderson during his tenure as director for the Institute of Dialectics and Folk life Studies at the University of Leeds. Between 2019 and 2023 the LAVC Collection was the subject of a National Lottery Heritage funded project 'Dialect and Heritage.' Part of this saw item level listing and digitisation of the SED Response Books; item level listing of SED Audio Recordings (LAVC/SRE/D) as well as enhancement of catalogue descriptions for recordings, photographs and response books to include indexing of personal names, subjects, locations. It also involved a review for sensitive language or graphic content.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
Stewart Sanderson came to the University of Leeds in 1960 as a Lecturer in Folk life Studies within the school of English. Previously he had gained his Bachelors and Masters Degrees in English Language and Literature at the University of Edinburgh, as well as briefly serving in the British Army as a Royal Navy Volunteer (1943-1946). In 1964 Sanderson was appointed director of the newly formed Institute of Dialect and Folk life Studies. There he established both undergraduate and postgraduate programs in the field of folk life – these were the first of their kind in the UK.
During his time at the University of Leeds, Sanderson became involved in a linguistic survey of England, which was being conducted by Harold Orton. In 1968, Sanderson agreed to co-edit a linguistic atlas based on Orton's survey. This was published in 1978. During this time Sanderson was also conducting his own research regarding the Jewish community in Leeds. In 1965 he invited fellow academic Zvi Sofer as a guest lecturer to the University. During Sofer’s visit, the pair travelled across West Yorkshire documenting the lives and traditions of Northern English Jewish communities. Following this project, Sanderson was appointed chairman of the English department in Leeds (1980). The Institute of Dialect and Folk life Studies was closed in 1983 as a result of budget cuts.
- Access points: persons/families:
- Stewart Sanderson
- Zvi Sofer
- System of arrangement:
- This collection comprises seventeen sub-fonds (sub-collections). This arrangement is derived principally from the identification of the provenance, form and function of these individual collections, but does retain within each any original arrangement, where it has been possible to identify such an order. In some cases it has been necessary to impose an arrangement (again based on form and function), where no pre-existing system has been apparent.
- Access, restrictions:
- Some parts of this collection may be restricted due to copyright or data protection laws.
- Yerusha Network member:
- The University of Leeds Cultural Collections & Galleries
- Author of the description:
- Holly Addie, University of Leeds Cultural Collections & Galleries, 2025
