Every single singer we questioned on the subject discriminated between what we folkies refer to as 'folk' and other types of songs in their repertoire.
They may not have used the same terminology as we did, but they recognised them as being 'different'.
'Come-all-yes' and 'traditional' or simply 'the old songs' were probably the most common terms used; some referred to them as 'traditional'.
Traveller, Mary Delaney called all her 200-odd traditional songs her 'daddies songs' - she learned around a dozen from her father. She went as far as to say that 'the new songs have the old ones ruined'. Her 'old' songs ranged from 18th century ballads to Traveller-made ones referring to incidents that had taken place within 5 years of our recording them.
Mikeen McCarthy said he didn't discriminate, but with all his traditional songs he saw pictures - "like being in a cinema". When questioned more closely he referred to his traditional repertoire as "fireside songs", as distinct from "street songs" (those used for selling ballad-sheets) or "pub songs" (those sung for pennies around the bars during fairs and markets). Mikeen's terminology wasn't restricted to the songs, but also to the different way they should be sung.
I can't speak for John England in 1903, but Walter Pardon was listing his family's songs into distinct catergories as early as 1948, a quarter of a century before he became a twinkle in the revival's eye.
He spoke at length, not just about the different types of song in his repertoire, but what those differences were (see Musical Traditions article).
Personally, I find the suggestion of "Canny singers" manipulating the revival for their own purposes, deeply offensive and patronising, but as it usually comes from people who can't tell the difference between Phil Tanner and Richard Tauber, I don't suppose it matters too much, and we can be content with the fact that the 'ignorant traditional singer' is about as real as the Victorian 'noble savage'.
Jim Carroll