November 22, 1859:
Cecil James Sharp is born in Denmark Hill, Camberwell, London, United Kingdom, the third of eight children born to James Sharp, a slate merchant, and Jane Bloyd, the daughter of a lead merchant.
August 22, 1893:
Cecil Sharp (33) marries Constance Dorothea Birch in All Saints Parish Clevedon, Somerset.
February 2, 1899:
The Folk-Song Society holds its first general meeting, attended by Cecil Sharp (40). Hubert Parry (51) addresses the group.
December 26, 1899:
At Sandfield Cottage, Headington, just east of Oxford, Cecil Sharp (40) witnesses Morris Dancing for the first time.
December 27, 1899:
From the concertina player who accompanied the Morris Dance he saw yesterday, Cecil Sharp (40) notes down his first five folk tunes.
August 22, 1903:
Cecil Sharp (43) meets John England in Hambridge, Somerset. From England, Sharp will note down his first folk song. Within a short time in Somerset, Sharp will collect 40 songs from several singers.
December 2, 1903:
A letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams (31) appears in the Morning Post. It refers to a recent lecture on folk song by Cecil Sharp (44) and suggests that county councils be engaged in the preservation of folk songs.
May 23, 1908:
Cecil Sharp (48) writes to Percy Grainger (25) congratulating him on his folksong collecting, but stating his strong reservations about the use of the phonograph. Sharp thinks it makes the singers nervous. And he believes that an exact record of the performance is not the goal, but rather its artistic effect.
December 6, 1911:
At a public meeting of the Folk Dance Club in St. Andrews Hall, Newman Street, London, Cecil Sharp (52) proposes that the group be dissolved and that a larger group called the English Folk Dance Society be established. The proposal is adopted.
June 6, 1912:
The English Folk Dance Society gives its first public performance, at Kensington Town Hall. Cecil Sharp (52) lectures and accompanies the dances on piano.
April 21, 1915:
After four months in America, Cecil Sharp (55) boards SS Adriatic in New York to return to England.
November 22, 1917:
English Folk-Songs of the Southern Appalachians, collected by Olive Dame Campbell and Cecil Sharp, is published. It is Sharp's 58th birthday.
September 13, 1923:
Cecil Sharp (63) collects his last folksong, Three Maids a-Milking, in the Headington Union, less than a kilometer from where he collected his first folksong in 1899.
June 23, 1924:
Cecil James Sharp dies in his home at 4 Maresfield Gardens in London, of cancer of the upper respiratory system, aged 64 years, seven months, and one day.
June 25, 1924:
The mortal remains of Cecil Sharp are cremated at Golders Green, London.
June 27, 1924:
A service in memory of Cecil Sharp is held in St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London.
June 24, 1929:
A foundation stone for a building to serve as the permanent home of the English Folk Dance Society is laid in Regent's Park Road in London. It will be known as the Cecil Sharp (†5) House.
June 5, 1951:
Partially destroyed by bombs in World War II, the Cecil Sharp (†26) House is reopened in London by Princess Margaret. It is the home of the English Folk Dance and Song Society.
January 21, 1972:
Paragraph 5 of The Great Learning, for a large number of untrained musicians making gestures, performing actions, speaking, chanting, and playing a wide range of instruments, plus, optionally, ten solo singers singing “Ode Machines”, by Cornelius Cardew (35) to words of Confucius, (tr. Pound), is performed for the first time, in the Cecil Sharp House, London.