Extract from the link.........

In the summer of 1903, in the garden of a rural vicarage in Somerset, a chance meeting took place that would radically alter the course of 20th-century British culture and music. Cecil Sharp, a former bank clerk turned classical composer, was conversing with some friends when he heard a gardener singing to himself as he worked. Sharp noted down the tune and asked the gardener for the words. That evening, Sharp performed his own, more musically ornate, version of "The Seeds of Love" with a female vocalist at a choir supper. A member of the delighted audience noted that it was "the first time that the song had been put into an evening dress".
This story, one of many fascinating tales told by Rob Young in his epic study of the various transformations of British folk music in the 20th century, is illuminating on many levels. Cecil Sharp, who subsequently travelled throughout Britain collecting old songs, is now regarded as the father of the English folk-song revival. John England, the gardener who set Sharp off on his journey of discovery, – and appropriation – has remained relatively unknown and unheralded, at least until now. Rob Young dubs him "the man who inadvertently triggered the 20th century folk-song revival".
Sean O'Hagan - The Observer, Sunday 22 August 2010