Dr Eddie Cass

ACIB
Born(1937-02-12)12 February 1937
Manchester, England
Died17 September 2014(2014-09-17) (aged 77)
Manchester, England
NationalityBritish
Alma materManchester Metropolitan University, Edge Hill University
Occupations

Edward Fletcher Cass ACIB (12 February 1937 – 17 September 2014) was a British miner, banker and authority on Lancashire folklore, industrial archaeology and the arts who was President of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, Folklore Society, Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society and Society for Folk Life Studies.

Career

Mining and banking

Cass was born in Manchester in 1937. He attended the Central High School (later Sheena Simon College) before starting work in a pharmacy and then as a coal miner at Bradford Colliery, Manchester, where he formed an attachment to the National Union of Mineworkers (though not always its leadership) and became friends with Jim Allen. From there he moved to William Deacon's Bank (later Royal Bank of Scotland), where he became a bank manager and studied part-time at the Manchester College of Commerce. He was later elected an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers.[1]

Academia

Cass continued his studies with an MA (1992) at Manchester Polytechnic (later Manchester Metropolitan University) with a thesis on ‘A Local Newspaper and Its Community: Literature and The Cotton Factory Times, 1885–1937’ and then studied his PhD (1996) at Edge Hill University (awarded by Lancaster University) on "The Cotton Factory Times, 1885–1937: A Family Newspaper and the Lancashire Cotton Community".[2]

He was a Research Fellow of the National Centre for English Cultural Tradition at the University of Sheffield (1997–2004) and then a Research Fellow in The Elphinstone Institute at the University of Aberdeen (2004–14).[3] Cass was involved with The Folklore Society as a Council Member (from 2001) then President (2008–11) and vice-president (2011–14) and was also involved in The Society for Folk Life Studies first as Council Member (2002–03) then Honorary Secretary (2003–08), vice-president (2008–11) and President (2011–14) and was awarded their Coote Lake Medal for ‘outstanding research in folklore’.[4][5]

Other activities

Cass was Chairman of The Portico Library (1988–90) where he was also a curator of exhibitions, Secretary and Trustee of the National Museum of Labour History later the People's History Museum (1989–2002), President of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society (1993–95) and Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society (2009–12) and was also involved with Manchester's Cornerhouse and Museum of Science and Industry.[6]

Select bibliography

References

  1. ^ Schofield, Derek (2015). "In Memoriam: Edward Fletcher Cass (1937–2014)". Folklore. 126: 98–100. doi:10.1080/0015587X.2014.993153. S2CID 161495414.
  2. ^ Fowler, A. (2014). "Obituary: Eddie Cass". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 3 November 2014.
  3. ^ "Eddie Cass (1937–2014) - In Memoriam". University of Aberdeen. 2014. Archived from the original on 8 August 2020.
  4. ^ "Edward Fletcher Cass". Folk Play Research: The website of the Traditional Drama Research Group. 2014. Archived from the original on 24 July 2019.
  5. ^ Oates, Caroline (2015). "Obituary: Edward Fletcher Cass". Folk Life: Journal of Ethnological Studies. 53, 1: 82–85. doi:10.1179/0430877815Z.00000000039. S2CID 161970629.
  6. ^ "Obituary: Edward Fletcher Cass 1937–2014". Manchester Memoirs. 153: 147–148. 2014.
Professional and academic associations Preceded byDonald Stephen Lowell Cardwell President of Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society 1993–5 Succeeded byAlexander Donnachie Preceded byWilliam Francis Ryan President of The Folklore Society 2008–11 Succeeded byRobert Cripps McDowall Preceded byEric Foster President of Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society 2009–12 Succeeded byMorris Garratt
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