ALTHOUGH he had a successful career in the Civil Service, it is for his pivotal role in the development of the morris dancing revival that will prove the lasting legacy for Walter Abson.

It was at Cambridge that Abson first encountered folk and morris dancing. After attending folk dance parties organised by the local branch of the English Folk Dance Society, he was invited to practices of the Cambridge Morris Men in 1930.

This was in the very early days of the morris revival. The Travelling Morrice, with dancers from Cambridge University, had made its first open-air tour in 1924 — before then, the morris revival had largely confined itself to the classroom and indoor displays.

The Travelling Morrice tour was decisive in emulating the perambulations of the traditional village sides of dancers at Bampton, Headington Quarry and elsewhere, and paved the way for later sides to dance outdoors, on village greens and outside public houses. Walter Abson went on his first Travelling Morrice tour in 1931, and was formally admitted to membership of the Cambridge Morris Men in 1932. The members at the time included the distinguished scholar Joseph Needham, later to become Master of Gonville and Caius College, and a Companion of Honour.

The number of revival morris clubs across the country was small, and in 1933 Joseph Needham (then Squire of the Cambridge Morris) initiated discussions to establish a federation of such clubs, to be called the Morris Ring. The idea was pursued the following April during a week of morris dance instruction at Ringstead Mill in Norfolk. During one discussion, Walter Abson fell asleep and when he awoke found that he had been proposed as the Bagman (or secretary) elect of the Morris Ring, which was inaugurated at a meeting in Cecil Sharp House in London in October 1934.

The style of the morris revival owes much to those early pioneers. As Morris Ring Bagman, Walter copied the Travelling Morrice practice of keeping a log book of the dance weekends, so establishing a practice which continues to the present day. The first log, from 1934 to 1946, was edited by Walter for publication by the Morris Ring in 1991, and it provides a fascinating glimpse of those heady days when the dancing experience was new and unusual.

William Abson — the name “Walter” was acquired at Cambridge and stuck for the rest of his life — was born in Yorkshire, attended Ossett Grammar School and went up to Fitzwilliam Hall, Cambridge, to read science in 1929. After graduation, he undertook a teacher-training course, taught at Marylebone Grammar School and, during the war, served in the RAF, where he worked on telecommunications research.

At the end of hostilities he travelled Europe, liberating scientific equipment and helping to re-equip Brussels University. He went on to work for the Atomic Energy Establishment and then the Civil Service. He married in 1955 and he and Vivien, a fellow folk-dancer who predeceased him, had two children.

In 1946 Walter passed his Morris Ring responsibilities to another Cambridge man, Robert Ross, later keeper of botany at the British Museum. By this time Walter was living in Bromley in Kent, but attended weekly practices of the London Pride Morris Men and remained a team member for the rest of his life.

In the early 1960s Abson was one of the men who instigated the formation of the Morris Ring’s advisory council for retired officers, and his wise counsel and intelligent advice were much sought after as the interest in morris dancing grew steadily through the 1950s and then mushroomed when embraced by a younger generation in the 1960s and 1970s. These were difficult years for the all-male Morris Ring, not least because of the new interest in dancing among women.

Abson continued dancing right into his eighties, with London Pride and on the annual tours of the Travelling Morrice, and he attended the Morris Ring’s annual meeting and advisory council meetings in his 92nd year.

As one of the few remaining dancers from those early days, he was frequently called upon to verify the details of the founding of the Morris Ring, and was eagerly consulted by visiting morris men from America. He was particularly anxious that the recent suggestions that Rolf Gardiner, a supporter of fascism, had anything to do with the founding of the organisation, were clearly and unequivocally refuted.

William Walker (Walter) Abson, civil servant and morris dancer, was born on February 12, 1911. He died on February 27, 2005, aged 94.