Anne Gilchrist (collector)
Anne Geddes Gilchrist OBE FSA (8 December 1863 – 24 July 1954) was a British folk song collector. Although less well-known than her London-based counterparts, her expertise was acknowledged by Cecil Sharp, Lucy Broadwood, and John Masefield. Life and work Anne Geddes Gilchrist was born in Manchester, to Scottish parents. She had a musical upbringing and was related to Rev Neil Livingston, who compiled a psalter. After meeting Sabine Baring-Gould she became involved with folk music and joined the editorial board of the Folk-Song Society in 1906. She had an unusually good memory for hymn tunes, one of her areas of expertise. Gilchrist is a neglected figure because she did not write any books. Instead she contributed many scholarly articles to the Journal of the Folk-Song Society. In the very first edition of the Journal of the Folk-Song Society she wrote an article on the song Long Lankin. She reports that a woman in Northumberland used to frighten children by shouting "There's Long Lankin". Gilchrist collected songs from Scotland and the north-west of England. This was particularly valuable, as few folk-song collections had been made from that part of England. Following the discovery of a medieval sculpted stone in Cumberland,