"What evidence have you that Sharp actually did any research,"
Oh dear - I suspected his was coming Steve
The act of actually going out and talking to the people who carried the songs is, as far as I am concerned an act of researching (finding out) what folk song was about, without any earlier examples to go by, probably the most important
Based on 'Some Conclusions' alone, he was apparently familiar with other 'researchers' such as Motherwell, who he quotes, he had perused the broadsides he had his own personal collection of them and had obviously compared them to the songs he and his colleagues - he , as I do, found them chalk and cheese, as did later collectors whose work I am exploring at present
He knew the modes and wrote about them at length.
He became aware enough of the the importance of folk songs as the people's art to make efforts to get them into schools
A bit more than your average 'butterfly collector'
One of the great advantages Sharp and his colleagues had over today's researchers (what is left of that once proud band) is that they were there when there were enough old singers to make a hands on assessment of what folk song was and was about, they were in a position to judge whether the material being gathered was really 'the voice of the people' or just something they bought and learned parrot-fashion.
One of the greatest advantages was they were prepared to learn from each other, those who had gone before, and their main benefactors - not like the present somewhat distateful approach of sweeping aside old knowledge to make room for the new
   
I was once given a full set of 'the Journals, through all their various stages, despite their rather unhealthy (in my opinion) move from dealing solely with song, I find them still an essential edition to my knowledge, as I do all the early writings, Gummere, Gerould, Wimberly.... (notably mainly American)
Today find much of today's Journal (not all nowadays) a lone light - an echo of what a folk scene was once about - one that knew what folk song was and didn't make discussions on definition no-go areas, as it has become on a forum which styles itself as being about "Traditional Music and Folklore Collection and Community"

Howard
Why do I think this material important ?
Because of what it is and represents
It needs to be available to all those who describe themselves as being involved in 'folk' - not just our collection but all I have mentioned and much, much more
I find it utterly outrageous that, after nearly seventy years, the result of the magnificent survey of the last of our song and music traditions carried out by the BBC and paid for by the public's money, is still generally unavailable, and what little that was issued has been deleted and forgotten
It should be promoted and used in schools and colleges in the hope (possibly vain, as things stand) that future generations might pick up the ball that our generation dropped
Why should EFDSS be interested - because that is part of their job description - they are not a music and dance society; they are a FOLK music and dance society - about time somebody reminded them of that fact
If they are not going to piss, they need to get off the pot.

Last night I spoke to a friend who sang at a concert of traditional song at Cecil Sharp House recently - to an audience of fifteen people
Jim Carroll