IT had been the custom of the Cambridge Morris Men since their foundation to invite to their annual Morris and Feast some leading Morris dancer from elsewhere, and such guests, after, having attended the Morris and Feast, were made Honorary Members of the Club. It soon became clear, however, that it was impossible for the Club to honour in this way all whom it would wish, and at a meeting held on November 2nd 1933 it was suggested that such dancers might be made Honorary Members without the usual procedure of invitation to the annual Feast. This, however, was felt to be unsatisfactory, and an alternative proposal was agreed to, namely, that the other groups and clubs to which these dancers belonged should be invited to join with the Cambridge Morris Men in establishing an informal federation of Morris Clubs, to be known as the Morris Ring. Five other Clubs were consulted, further discussion took place during the Cambridge Morris Men's week of dancing at Ringstead Mill in April 1934, and at the tenth annual Feast on April 14th the Squire, Joseph Needham, to whose initiative the plans for the Ring's foundation were largely due, declared the Ring instituted, the six Foundation Clubs being Cambridge, Oxford, Letchworth, Thaxted, East Surrey and Greensleeves. On June 2nd 1934, at the Thaxted week-end, representatives of five of the six Clubs approved a draft constitution, and Alec Hunter outlined the proposal to all the men present. This was followed by a meeting of Club representatives, and the Ring was declared constituted. The Inaugural Meeting of the Ring took place in Cecil Sharp House on October 20th 1934, Douglas Kennedy presiding, and was attended by between sixty and seventy men. Alec Hunter was elected first Squire of the Ring, and Walter Abson first Bagman, these titles being those already in use in the Cambridge Club.
Thus from the beginning it was the purpose of the Ring to provide a means by which the Clubs could be brought into closer touch with each other and so receive mutual encouragement, and this has remained its fundamental object throughout, based on the belief that, as in the old days of the Cotswold Morris, the dance can flourish as it should only in the atmosphere of a Club whose members are closely associated together. There is no doubt that the Ring's existence has fostered the Club spirit and has been responsible for the formation of Clubs which otherwise might never have come into being.
It was no accident that the Ring was first instituted at one of the Thaxted meetings, for Thaxted had been for several years the place where Morris men gathered to dance together; and it was also natural that after the Ring had been founded the annual Thaxted gathering should be counted as one of the important annual fixtures of the Ring. In many ways this Thaxted meeting is a model of what Ring meetings should be, for there it is the Thaxted men who are the hosts and make the necessary arrangements for the meeting, while the other Clubs are their guests. Similar meetings have been arranged by Clubs in other parts of the country, and I hope there will be many more. To provide a more central place of meeting for those Clubs who cannot easily get to Thaxted, regular meetings once or twice a year were instituted at Cecil Sharp House. The value of such gatherings cannot be exaggerated; it is universally agreed. Yet the size of them cannot grow beyond a certain limit without defeating their object, for the Morris cannot be danced in hordes or it will lose its character; and it is not in these large gatherings, valuable and inspiring as they are, but in the Clubs and in their regular meetings, that the true spirit of the Morris is to be found. Another function of the Ring, which I hope will be developed still more than it has been, is to provide an opportunity for experienced members of Clubs to meet and discuss anything concerning the welfare of the Clubs and of the Morris generally; and there may be many further ways, not yet attempted, in which the Ring can help the Clubs in the future, always preserving the essential relationship between the Clubs and the Ring. For the Ring is in no sense a 'super-Club'; it claims no right to prescribe policy for the Clubs that belong to it, nor has it ever suggested that every Club should follow a standardized pattern. Every Club associated in the Ring retains its own independence, and through its association in the Ring each Club contributes to the well-being of the others. There is not, and I hope there never will be, a `Ring style' of dancing; and if the Clubs ever begin to feel that the Ring is something over and above and superior to themselves, then it will be failing of its purpose.
For my own part, I should like to place on record my sense of the honour which has been done to me by the Clubs in electing me to be Squire of the Ring for the past two years. There can be few societies in which it is a greater pleasure to hold office, and although in looking back over this time it seems that I have done very little compared with what one might have hoped to do, it has been a great happiness to have this opportunity of getting to know Morris men better, to visit the Clubs on their own domestic occasions, and in however small a way to serve the Clubs and to help forward the work begun by Cecil Sharp.
Arthur L. Peck, Squire