singing games began to be recorded and studied seriously in the nineteenth century as part of the wider folklore movement. joseph strutt's "sports and pastimes of the people of england" (1801), robert chambers "popular rhymes of scotland" (1826), james orchard halliwell's "the nursery rhymes of england" (1842) and his "popular rhymes and nursery tales" (1849), g. f. northal's "english folk rhymes" (1892), all included collected singing games. however, the first studies to focus solely on this area were william wells newell's "games and songs of american children" (1883) and alice gomme's "the traditional games of england, scotland, and ireland" (1894-8), both considered landmark works in the serious study of the subject on respective sides of the atlantic. naturally, these works tended to have many of the faults associated with the folklore and folk song collecting of their eras, and have been criticised for a focus on rural society at the expense of the urban, and an obsession with recovering what were seen as disappearing 'authentic' and original verse, from adults, while disregarding contemporary practice by children. some of these problems were rectified by work like that of norman douglas, who produced "london street games" in 1916, focusing on the urban working classes.