A COLLECTION of folk music from South Marston author Alfred Williams will form part of a huge new digital archive.

The Full English digital archive includes more than 58,400 items from some of the country’s most important folk music collections – including manuscripts, notes and letters.

The Alfred Williams collection, owned by Swindon Council, is among those which have been conserved and digitised, before being uploaded to the online website run by the English Folk Dance and Song Society.

The original Alfred Williams archives are also available at the Chippenham-based history centre.

The Full English project has been made possible with a grant of £585,400 from the Heritage Lottery Fund, £11,000 from the National Folk Music Fund, whose funding is given in memory of Ursula Vaughan Williams, and support from The Folklore Society.

Alfred Williams was famous as a poet, author, and folksong collector of humble origins. Born in 1877 in South Marston into a rural labouring family, he began working for the Great Western Railway at their Swindon works, aged 14. Entirely self-taught in his spare time, he went on to publish both poetry and prose which received critical acclaim but little financial reward.

In the early years of the First World War, Williams travelled round north Wiltshire, the upper Thames and the Vale of the White Horse collecting over 1,000 folk songs, some of which were published in 1923 in Folk Songs of the Upper Thames.

His reputation grew after his death in 1930 and is maintained and promoted by both the Alfred Williams Heritage Society and the Friends of Alfred Williams, based in Swindon.

The Full English project brings together the collections of Harry Albion, Lucy Broadwood, Clive Carey, Percy Grainger, Maud Karpeles, Frank Kidson, Thomas Fairman Ordish, Cecil Sharp, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Alfred Williams for the first time, bringing together the most comprehensive searchable database of British folk songs, tunes, dances and customs in the world.

The project includes not only Alfred Williams’ folk songs but also all his literary manuscripts, correspondence and photographs held at Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre. Coun Garry Perkins, cabinet member for economy, regeneration and culture, said: “This is a fabulous project and I’m delighted we have been able to add Alfred Williams’ collection to the archive.

“The project is an important cultural resource for anyone interested in English folk music, songs and dances and I’m really pleased it has been supported here in Wiltshire.”

Lee Hall, playwright and screenwriter, said: “The Full English is possibly the most exciting and significant thing to happen to British folk music in at least a generation. It is a hugely important moment and a massive gift to the nation.”

The project has been managed by the EFDSS and the collections can be found at: www.vwml.org.uk/search/search-full-english.For more information visit www.alfredwilliams.org.uk.