Daker, Tom
Dancer
Collection date: Jan 1913
Area: Yorkshire
Tom Daker of Wigginton & Haxby sword dance: These two villages are less than a mile apart, situated 4 miles N of York city. Men from both villages contributed to the one sword dance team. Tom Daker was 70 when he met Sharp on 15 Jan 1913 and he added to the information already supplied by James Peckitt (see separate profile). It had been 40 years since Daker last danced (i.e. 1873) and he said he never saw the men dance under Peckitt’s leadership because he had left the village by then. The interviews were transcribed as Folk Dance Notes 3 pp9-11 and the dance was published in ‘Sword Dances of Northern England Book 3’ pp 86-90 in May 1913.
Thomas Daker was born c1842 in Wigginton, eldest son of William Daker, an agricultural labourer, and his wife Elizabeth (née Bickertide). Thomas became an agricultural labourer too, living with his grandmother Frances Bickertide in the 1871 census at Wigginton. He married Martha Patterson at Wigginton on 27/2/1877 and they had 3 children but Martha died in 1882, aged 30. Tom was remarried to Sarah Wright at Chilton church, York on 18/4/1886 and they moved to Skelton, 4 miles to the west (1901 census ref RG13/4435 f5 p2). His name was usually spelled ‘Daker’ but in 1901 it was ‘Dacker’ and in 1911 ‘Dacre’.
Tom Daker’s date of death is yet to be confirmed.
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