E. C. Cawte, Alex Helm, R. J. Marriott, and N. Peacock, 'A Geographical Index of the Ceremonial Dance in Great Britain', Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, 9.1 (1960), 1-41

Beginning of article

I have recently unearthed reports of a sword dance competition held at Blyth, Northumberland, in January 1881, enabling me to provide a supplementary list of thirteen additional rapper sword dance teams to this Index. Altogether, fifteen sets took part in the contest held in the Theatre Royal on 16 and 30 January 1881, thus establishing that the rapper sword dance was more widespread in the second half of the nineteenth century than previously indicated. (1) Two reports of the competition were published in the Blyth Weekly News on 22 January 1881 and 5 February 1881; my listing is taken from the first of these, to which I have added OS grid references for team locations where traceable:

Durham
The Wear Yule Dough Set
Northumberland
The Lads that Everybody Likes, Tyneside
The Excelsior Set, Seaton Burn             NZ2473
Henderson Gibson's Putter Set, Holywell    NZ3174
The Merry Lads, Choppington                NZ2583
Load's Old Set, Scotland Gate              NZ2584
First Rose of Northumberland, Cramlington  NZ2777
The Funny Lads, Dudley                     NZ2673
The Hastings Canny Lads, Hartley           NZ3475
Bob the Nailor's Young Set, Cowpen Quay    NZ3182
Dudley Putters' Set                        NZ2673
East Holywell Putters                      NZ3173
First Northumberland

In view of the dearth of records for nineteenth-century sword dance competitions, I quote here in full the two accounts of this tournament: