Charles Dack

Charles Dack was an English local historian and folklorist associated with Peterborough. He is the author of Weather and Folk Lore of Peterborough and District, a work published in 1911 for the benefit of the Peterborough Natural History, Scientific, and Archaeological Society.

The book grew out of an earlier paper on the “survival of old customs” that he read in 1898, and it gathers sayings, beliefs, and seasonal traditions from villages around Peterborough and nearby counties. Dack wrote that many of these customs and bits of lore were repeated to him personally, which gives his work the feel of a firsthand record of local memory.

Although not a widely known literary figure, he has been described in later library and archival writing as a “forgotten folklorist,” and his surviving work remains valuable for readers interested in English folklore, regional history, and the textures of everyday life in the early twentieth century.