Judge was born in Hastings in 1929, where he attended the local grammar school before being evacuated to St Albans during the Second World War.
[1] In 1974 Judge took a sabbatical to undertake a master’s degree at the Institute of Dialect and Folk Life Studies at the University of Leeds.
Returning to the University of Leeds, he submitted a doctoral dissertation, Changing attitudes to May Day, 1844–1914, in 1987, developing this research in a number of articles.
[1] His later research concerned the history of the Morris dance, and of its revival in the late nineteenth century through the work of Cecil Sharp.
Judge's work showed how Morris dancing had been present in nineteenth century theatre and pageantry in ways hitherto unknown to scholars.