Information about the Morris Dancers written by Arnold Woodley, Frank Woodley and Sonny Townsend
Families mentioned as follows:
Dixey
Radband
Flux
Hudson
Lay
Pettifer
Smith
Butler
Brooks
Dafter
Fidler
Kerry
Brown
Tanner
Woodley
Townsend
Cassiday
Fowler
Pearman
Woodley
Buckingham
Picketts
Edington
Hunt

Photograph of 1984 Bampton Traditional Morris dancers
Left to right, back row. Francis Shergold squire, Bob Allison cake bearer, Rod Stradling melodeon, Martin Ferguson, Ray Borrett, Bruce Piercy, Dave Rose, Billy Main, behind is Tony Daniels, Cyril Smith, Jamie Wheel with Mark Harrison behind and Jasper Walsh.
Front left to right. Terry Rouse fool, Craig Godwin, Keith Rouse, Jamie Blackwell, Reg Hall on fiddle.

Photo of Francis Shergold and Bob Allison described as a lovely man he was the
Cake bearer 1962-1989. Died 1994.

Sam Bennett born (1865-1951) from Ilmington, a frequent dancer and musician in Bampton, this photo dated 1920
Sam had the distinction of being called “a rotter” by Cecil Sharp. He was responsible for reviving the Morris tradition in the Warwickshire village of Ilmington. Although a fiddle player himself, he learned the tunes from a local pipe and tabor player, Tom Foster, who “no longer had enough teeth to hold the pipe in place” In the process of reviving the dances, Bennett did some improving and inventing along the way. To Sharp, this was inexcusable meddling; what he most treasured about traditional dance was that is was supposedly not the work of individual creativity, but of centuries of continuous evolution by the common, preferably uneducated people. Bennett was recorded in 1933 by a Harvard academic, James Madison Carpenter. Being a self-taught fiddler, and having learned his tunes directly from a piper, it is little wonder that his playing, though very rhythmic, was plain and unadorned except with frequent open-string drones.

Black and white photo of Morris dancers taken on 6th June 1927
left to right Tanner snr. Billy Flux, E Lay, Hudson. Bertie Hunt, Freddie Tanner, (written on back)

Black and white photo of Morris dancers taken on in 1934
Jingy Wells on fiddle, George 'Punch' Smith, Reg Whitlock Dancer

Black and white photo of Morris dancers taken on 1951
outside Elephant and Castle,

Black and white photo of Morris dancers taken in 1968 in Ireland