Dancing Times, The

The Dancing Times, first published in 1894 as the house magazine of the Cavendish Rooms, London, a ballroom dancing establishment, was the oldest monthly devoted to dancing. It was bought in 1910 by P. J. S. Richardson and T. M. Middleton and transformed into a national periodical, covering all forms of dancing, and reporting worldwide. Richardson was a British writer on dancing and was the editor of  the Dancing Times from 1910 until 1958 when he was succeeded by A H Franks, but remained president until his death in 1963. Franks split off the ballroom section of the magazine into a second periodical, the Ballroom Dancing Times, and in 1962 doubled the format of the Dancing Times to its present size of A4. Franks died suddenly in 1963 and Mary Clarke, then assistant editor, became editor. In 2015 the ballroom and social dance magazine, by then given the title  Dance Today, was reintegrated into the pages of the Dancing Times so that the magazine again covered all aspects of dance. Clarke retired from the editorship in 2008 and was succeeded by Jonathan Gray who continued its original stated policy to maintain the highest standards of criticism and illustration, give voice to leading authorities, encourage high standards of teaching, encourage awareness of dance history and stress the importance of dance in education.

For more than 110 years Dancing Times remained the leader in its field, sustained by loyal readers and advertisers alike. Unfortunately changing financial conditions, the global pandemic of 2020, and changing patterns of readership led to the magazine closing, and the final issue of the Dancing Times was published in September 2022. During its years of publication, the Dancing Times amassed a collection of photographic images representing all the aspects of dance covered by the magazine. Some of the earlier material was lost during World War II, but a significant library remains. Due to the breadth of coverage, the image library constitutes an important and valuable academic and historical resource, offering a range of images unlikely to be found in any existing single image collection.