Folklore as an Historical Science

Sir George Laurence Gomme, FSA, was both a civil official and an antiquarian. His two main interests were folklore and antique structures. He was instrumental in establishing the Victoria County History and Folklore Society, as well as convincing the London County Council to oversee the blue plaque commemoration system. Gomme was born in Stepney, London, as the second of ten children of engineer William Laurence Gomme (1828-1887) and his wife Mary (1831-1921). He attended the City of London School until the age of sixteen, when he began working for a railway company, then the Fulham Board of Works, and finally, in 1873, the Metropolitan Board of Works; he remained with it and its successor, the London County Council, until his retirement in 1914. His interest in folklore was shared with his wife, Alice Bertha Gomme, née Alice Bertha Merck (1853-1938), whom he married on March 31, 1875. The marriage had seven sons, including Arnold Wycombe Gomme, a well-known classical scholar, and Arthur Allan Gomme, a librarian and technological historian. Gomme and his wife founded the Folklore Society in 1878, and he later served as its honorary secretary, director, and president. Gomme wrote Primitive Folk Moots (1880), as well as several books and papers on folklore, such as Folklore Relics of Early Village Life (1883), Ethnology in Folklore (1892), and Folklore as a Historical Science (1908).