Prince Of Wales

Scottish Country Dance Instruction

1- 8 1s take prom hold, dance down behind 2M+3M, cross the set and dance up behind 3L+2L to top, 1M passes partner in front to finish on his Left
9-16 1s lead down the middle and back to top, 2s step in ready for...
17-24 1s+2s dance Allemande, 1s end facing 1st corners
25-32 1s ¾ turn 1st corners RH, set to partner up/down, ¾ turn 2nd corners LH and set to partner up/down
33-40 1s lead out between 2L+3L, cross and cast (1L up, 1M down), meet in centre and dance out of Men's side and cast up/down, dancing into 2nd place own sides

(MINICRIB. Dance crib compiled by Charles Upton, Deeside Caledonian Society, and his successors)

Keith Rose's Crib Diagram

Prince Of Wales - Full Size And Key To Symbols

Dance Information

While this makes him the most likely 'Prince of Wales' in chronological terms, there is no evidence that the dance was created in his honour. The title was probably adopted for its fashionable or royal connotations rather than as a specific dedication, and should be understood as a stylistic label of its period rather than a documented tribute to an individual.

William Campbell was a London music seller, publisher and compiler of dance books whose long career around the turn of the nineteenth century produced a series of collections entitled 'New and Favorite Country Dances and Strathspey Reels... as danced at Court, Bath... and all public assemblies'. His tenth book is dated 1795, placing his activity firmly in the late eighteenth century, when Scottish country dance was taking shape from the merger of older English longways forms with Scottish musical idioms and more intricate footwork.

Through the work of Campbell and other dancing masters, informal social dances were gathered, adapted and published in ways that allowed them to spread widely and to become part of a more stable, repeatable repertoire. This dance, one of the dances attributed to him, sits within this broader transition: an English-derived country-dance structure expressed within the social and musical context that was becoming increasingly recognised as Scottish.

Dating individual dances from this period is difficult, since collections were often undated or reprinted without clear provenance, and it is rarely possible to determine when a particular figure was first used, how common it was, or how closely modern versions reflect the original.

The Prince Of Wales, Later George IV, c. 1798

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