Cecil James Sharp (1859-1924) was an English folk song and dance collector, and a central figure in the Edwardian folk revival. Though best known for his work with terrestrial folk songs and Morris dances, his 1914 collection English Folk-Chanteys remains an important early compilation of sea shanties.

Sharp began collecting folk songs in Somerset in 1903 after hearing a gardener sing “The Seeds of Love.” Over the following two decades he collected thousands of songs across England and, during expeditions to the Southern Appalachian mountains (1916-1918), documented hundreds more British-origin ballads surviving in American oral tradition. He founded the English Folk Dance Society in 1911, which later merged with the Folk-Song Society to form the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS), still headquartered at Cecil Sharp House in London.

For his shanty collection, Sharp relied heavily on John Short, a retired sailor of about 76 who had spent fifty years on sailing vessels. Sharp freely admitted he had “no technical or practical knowledge whatever of nautical matters” and had “never even heard a chantey sung on board ship,” but his careful transcriptions and musical arrangements preserved many shanties that might otherwise have been lost. Over a third of the songs in English Folk-Chanteys were published there for the first time.