Thomas Fairman Ordish (1855-1924), sometimes also referred to as T. Fairman Ordish was a British folklorist, noted for his interest in traditional drama and folk play, early theatre (especially the plays of William Shakespeare) and the history of London.
Privately educated, he was first employed as a publisher's clerk before moving to the Patent Office in London.
[5] As Ordish's interests in these fields grew, he joined the Folklore Society in 1886.
[1] Oridsh would play an active part in the administration of the Society, including being the chairman of the organising committee of the 1891 International Folklore Congress.
[4] Ordish's articles in the Folklore Society journal, put forward his theories on traditional dramas and folk plays.
He argued that mumming and sword dances - along with local pageants and processions - were a direct survival of Anglo-Saxon and Danish customs[5] (which had even earlier pagan origins).
[6] For Ordish, it was these folk plays which lay behind the flourishing of drama which took place in Elizabethan England.
This reading was counter to the then prevailing view of historians of the theatre who framed their arguments around surviving literary texts of medieval miracle and mystery plays.
Whilst Ordish's 'survivals' argument is no longer accepted by historians, his interest and ideas on folk play - and the collection he put together - were a major inspiration for later researchers.
[1] After retirement from the Patent Office, Ordish and his family moved from London to live in Herne Bay, Kent.
[5] He aimed to use this collection to write and then publish a sizeable work on the topic of mummers' plays, but this volume - although often talked about as being in preparation - did not appear before Ordish's death.