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Lorist, reformist and

romanticist: The
nineteenth‐century
response to
Gypsy‐travellers
a
David Mayall
a
De La Salle College , Manchester
Published online: 21 Jun 2010.

To cite this article: David Mayall (1985) Lorist, reformist and romanticist:
The nineteenth‐century response to Gypsy‐travellers, Immigrants &
Minorities: Historical Studies in Ethnicity, Migration and Diaspora, 4:3,
53-67, DOI: 10.1080/02619288.1985.9974614

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02619288.1985.9974614

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 Lorist, Reformist and Romanticist:
The Nineteenth-Century Response
to Gypsy-travellers

Gypsy-travellers have always occupied an uncertain and contra-

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dictory position in sedentary-based societies. Although perform-

ing significant economic and social functions this contribution was
more usually overshadowed by the points at which they clashed
with the structures and ideologies of the dominant and 'host'
society. In the nineteenth century the Gypsy-travellers were popu-
larly presented in two distinct ways: as a Romany race and as
degenerate itinerants. These varying perspectives originated from
different sources and represented contrasting approaches to the
Gypsy/nomadic 'problem'. The validity, purpose and consequ-
ences of these apparently conflicting images form the subject of
this article.

In 1914 the Gypsy Lore Society published a bibliographical guide com-

piled by George Black which contained several hundred separate titles of
works having some substantial reference to Gypsies in Britain and
Europe1. Foreign-language items and others written in English but con-
cerned only with the European experience account for a significant
number of entries. Nevertheless there remains an impressively large core
of works relating specifically to the British Isles, written by a diverse
group of poets, evangelists, social reformers, folk lorists, philologists,
genealogists, encyclopaedists and novelists. Articles are listed from
literary, Christian and leisure journals as varied as the Church of England
Magazine, the Weekly Record of the National Temperance League and
Baily's Magazine of Sports and Pastimes. Problems of error and
inaccuracy are inevitable in a bibliography of this size and Black's guide is
unfortunately no exception, containing many incorrect spellings, titles
and dates. However, the frustrations of attempting to locate works from
misleading bibliographical information are more than compensated by
the abundance and potential of those for which the details are accurate.
Even so. Black was unable to claim that his endeavours had produced the
definitive and comprehensive guide, acknowledging the gaps left by the
omission of numerous indirect sources. References from newspapers and
official publications, both extremely useful areas for research, are notice-
ably absent. Yet, despite this. Black's guide provides the most convenient
starting point for an enquiry into nineteenth-century Gypsyry and, when
supplemented by Dennis Binns' recent updated bibliography, it becomes
 54 IMMIGRANTS AND MINORITIES

rapidly apparent that there is no shortage of contemporaneously pub-

lished material.2 The difficulty comes in attempting to make sense of the
diverse and often contradictory information contained in such a wide
selection of available texts. One method of approaching the problem is to
consider the works according to a categorization determined by the aims
of the authors and the milieu of their writings. While there will necessarily
be exceptions, it is possible to identify a pattern in the shape and form
given to the Gypsies from two different perspectives, the one presenting
them as a separate race and the other as parasitical travellers. The
distinctive Romany is most commonly found in the writings of novelists,
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poets and adherents to the late nineteenth-century school of folk lorists

and gypsiologists. The alternative picture of the degenerate didakai/
traveller can be identified in the works of social reformers and
philanthropists, from the early missionaries to the later parliamentarians
and local authority officers.

I
The image of the romantic Romany Gypsy will be known to everyone
familiar with some period of English literary history. Novelists who chose
to introduce a Gypsy element into their stories invariably described the
people as noble savages of foreign ancestry, living a natural alfresco life.
The picture presented left no gaps, incorporating physical appearance,
dress, culture, rites, ceremonies, beliefs, temperament and behaviour.
The fictionalized Romany wore bright clothes and droopy earrings, had
long, dark hair falling over black, pearly eyes, and possessed a wild,
defiant spirit. Nor were these images restricted to works by well-known
and respected literary figures. Railway literature, for example, borrowed
from the same traditions and revealed the mysterious Romany in assorted
tales of romance, excitement and adventure. The attraction of the Gypsy
to both writer and reader lay in the contrast between the proximity and
distance of the people: they travelled the roads of rural England and yet
remained aloof from the manners and conventions of the host society.
They favoured an itinerant life style while the majority of the population,
with some notable exceptions, was content to remain more or less seden-
tary. Their employments appeared to run counter to industrial progress
by relying on personal services and traditional, unmechanized crafts.
Moreover, they were readily identifiable from the majority of the settled
population by their distinctive physiognomy and a culture specifically
their own. Continuous mobility ensured that they remained on the fringes
of the sedentary-based society, serving to reinforce the mystery and
romance. In short, they were portrayed as a foreign race whose way of life
and patterns of behaviour stood in direct contravention of existing and
generally accepted standards: they did not concern themselves with the
drudgery and servility of wage labour, feel bound by the dictates of law
and order, or accept the rituals and beliefs of the Christian Church.
This romanticized presentation of the Gypsies was not only to be found
 GYPSY-TRAVELLERS: THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY RESPONSE 55

in various works of literature. The middle years of the nineteenth century

saw the emergence of a group of social scientists with a particular interest
in this people. By the 1880s they had become organized into the Gypsy
Lore Society, a loose mixture of ethnologists, philologists, folk lorists,
anthropologists and genealogists. These gypsiologists were responsible
for producing a large number of monographs and articles which appeared
in the latter decades of the century, many of which were published in the
Gypsy Lore Society's own periodical.' There can be no doubting the
enthusiasm and productivity of these writers, and the names of Eric
Winstedt, Henry Crofton, Francis Groome, Thomas Thompson and
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Willis Watson feature regularly in the pages of the Journal of the Gypsy
Lore Society. The 1870s and 1880s also saw the publication of many
lengthier and influential works dealing with all aspects of Romany life,
language, beliefs and origins. Chief among these are Francis Groome's In
Gipsy Tents (Edinburgh, 1880) and The Gypsies (Edinburgh, 1881),
Charles Godfrey Leland's The English Gipsies and their Language (1874)
and The Gypsies (1882), and Bath Smart and Henry Crofton's The Dialect
of the English Gypsies (1875). The lasting influence of these works can be
seen in Elwood Trigg's recent doctoral thesis and subsequent book where
the findings of the gypsiologists are faithfully and uncritically
reproduced.4 While it is impossible not to be impressed by the scale and
scope of the lorists' researches their premises, method and conclusions
have to be treated with a great deal more caution than allowed by Trigg
and others. If read at face value their findings would seem to confirm the
romantic view of the existence of a separate Romany race. Belief in the
foreign origin of the Gypsies was the core around which the gypsiologists
wove a comprehensive web of generalizations concerning appearance,
culture and behaviour. The question of origin featured prominently in the
early issues of the JGLS and set the tone for future articles. The principal
assumption was that the Gypsies of nineteenth-century England were
directly descended from tribes originating from either India or Egypt,
able to trace their ancestry through precise genealogical trees. Supporting
evidence was provided by various writers showing how this distinct peo-
ple maintained their separateness over many centuries by marrying only
within the tribe. Notions of blood purity, and the possession of true black
Romany blood (or kalo rail) remained dominant themes. The gypsio-
logists were concerned only with this racially pure group and other travel-
lers of mixed or no Romany blood were excluded from their enquiries. A
pyramidal ordering among travellers was therefore constructed with dis-
tinct horizontal boundaries between each layer and the Romany race
placed firmly on the top as an elite group, trie aristocrats of the road.
There can be no dispute with the gypsiologists concerning the foreign
origin of a section of the itinerant population. Records from the early
sixteenth century show that Britain experienced an influx of foreign
Gypsies, arriving from different parts of Europe, who were subsequently
to feature as the subjects of a series of excessively severe legislation/
More doubtful is the claim that this group maintained their racial purity
 56 IMMIGRANTS AND MINORITIES

over a period of 300 years spent travelling alongside an existing indige-

nous nomadic population. Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that the
process of intermixing commenced shortly after their arrival." By the
nineteenth century it would seem reasonable to suppose that this had
been continuing over many successive generations, thus challenging the
lorists' desire to identify travellers according to the degree of racial purity
existing among family groups. Moreover, the gypsiologists" own findings,
based on a suspect methodology which linked the 'pure' race with sur-
name, reveal much which suggests the opposite of their conclusions.
Their tables of Romany pedigree, which appear at intervals in the JGLS,
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indicate a tradition of intermarriage which goes a long way to destroying

the fundamental basis of a travelling pyramid constructed according to
definitions reliant on notions of blood purity.
An early indication of the difficulty in distinguishing between different
groups of travellers is to be found in the Poor Law Act of 1596, which
describes as rogues and vagabonds all persons wandering in the 'habite,
forme or attyre of counterfayte Egyptians'. This significant amendment
to previous provisions, which concentrated more specifically on the
Egyptians as immigrants, represents the beginning of the tendency to
expand the boundaries of the group to be brought within the purview of
restrictive legislation. Henceforth, concern was to be directed at the
whole of the nomadic population irrespective of racial origins.The Egyp-
tians Act of 1783 repealed all previous (racial) enactments pertaining to
Gypsies, permitting the development of a more comprehensive if rather
vague form of control by means of the various Poor Law, Vagrancy,
Highways and similar Acts. Accompanying this legislative shift was the
emergence of a missionary endeavour to reform the itinerant 'heathens'.
By the early part of the century it was realized that the evangelists did
not have to travel to the dark continent to discover the existence of a
degraded and irreligious people ripe for conversion: they were to be
found in the fields and lanes on the very doorstep of the Church.
Although the missionaries may have subscribed to a belief in the
Romany, in practice they were not concerned with locating a separate
race but rather in advertising the appalling conditions of life of a large
travelling group urgently in need of reform. Perhaps the most important
advance towards arousing serious interest in the Gypsy and itinerant
'problem' came with the publication of the English translation of Hein-
rich Grellmann's Dissertation on the Gypsies (1787). Although concerned
primarily with the Continental experience it was the first real attempt to
systematically collate information on the ways and manners of a travelling
population. The missionary ball had thus been set rolling and the question
was taken up with increasing fervour, notably in the pages of the Christian
Observer (1808) and the Northampton Mercury (1814). The language
adopted was uncompromising in its condemnation, describing the Gypsy-
travellers as wretched, degraded pests and parasites. The missionaries"
remedy was to call for the social and religious reclamation of the
travellers. To bring these people into line with the ways of settled society
 GYPSY-TRAVELLERS: THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY RESPONSE 57

was the means of transforming them into 'useful citizens'. The language
of the new industrial ideology provided the justification for their propos-
als. A characteristic of all these early calls was that they were argued from
a position of almost total ignorance about, and certainly a lack of contact
with, the people whom they sought to reform. Their solution sought the
destruction of the traveling way of life to be achieved by breaking up
families and removing the children to parochial schools, apprenticing
them to various trades and making their activities subject to the control
and supervision of an overseer.7 None of these was considered possible
unless organized on the principle of absolute compulsion.
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A realization of these shortfalls, and especially the use of coercion,

caused the Quakers to rethink their plan of action. Following a meeting in
1815 one of their number, John Hoyland, was delegated with the respon-
sibility of investigating the Gypsy question. A circular letter and ques-
tionnaire was sent to members of the clergy and laity in most of the
counties of England, and Hoyland supplemented this with personal visits
to camps in Northamptonshire, Hainault Forest and Norwood. The
results of his findings and replies to his questionnaire were published in
1816 as A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits and Present State of the
Gypsies. This was destined to become one of the most influential books
written about Gypsies in the nineteenth century. Hoyland argued per-
suasively for the urgent need for reform and the years immediately
following publication witnessed a stirring of action." However, it was not
until the Home Missionary Society turned its attentions to the problem
in the 1820s that any decisive and significant steps were taken, prompting
a number of major missionary initiatives which commenced in the middle
decades of the century. Among these were the endeavours of the
Reverend James Crabb and the Southampton Committee, the Reverends
John Baird and Adam Davidson at Kirk Yetholm in Scotland, Reverend
John West at Chettle in Dorset, the London City Mission, the New Forest
Good Samaritan Charity, and Stanley Alder at Chobham. Each gave rise
to a considerable quantity of printed material, including Committee
reports, newspaper articles, monographs, biographies and testimonials.1'
The origins of this class of people was often discussed in these various
texts and yet the chief concern of the authors was not to trace ancestry and
highlight blood purity among a separate race. Indeed, the Second Report
of the Southampton Committee stated unequivocally that the Gypsies
were no longer identifiable as a distinct and peculiar race owing to the
admission to their ranks of vagabonds, tinkers, umbrella-menders and
vagrants. Rather, their intention was to advertise the degraded manners,
morals and customs of a heterogeneous travelling population. This deci-
sive modification in the definition of the itinerant group occurred when
the missionaries at last left their pulpits and moved into the camps of the
travellers. It was soon discovered that while some were able to claim a
long tradition of nomadism among the family group there were others
who were more recent converts to this distinctive style of life."' More
pressing, then, than the need to trace ancestry was the urgency of bringing
 58 IMMIGRANTS AND MINORITIES

this outcast people into conformity with the ways of civilized, settled
society.
Without exception the evangelists saw the travelling way of life as an
evil demanding immediate remedy. In contrast with the romanticism of
the novelists they saw only poverty, hardship and deprivation. The reality
of an itinerant life style was far removed from the idyllic images of literary
works. The Reverend John Baird was especially vociferous in his conde-
mnation, keen to expose any form of romanticism as a plethora of lies and
mythical fantasy. Where the novelists saw a natural freedom Baird saw
only dishonesty, dirt and idleness. In most aspects his proposals closely
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followed the example set by Crabb at Southampton but whereas the latter
had been content to rely on persuasion, Baird argued the need for
coercion. Both believed the key was to be found in education: if the
children of travellers could be persuaded or forced to regularly attend
local schools then they would be taught the advantages of an orderly and
settled way of life. The older generation were not to be entirely forgotten
but little was expected in terms of their reform as the effort had come too
late.
The successes of the evangelists were very limited despite Crabb's
mission lasting for 20 years and Baird's for over 30. According to their
own judgment, some of the Gypsies had been persuaded to abandon
itinerancy, adopt sedentary trades, accept Christian marriages and
reform their morals. The majority, though, rejected any incentives and
continued their travelling. Any modification in the manner or style of
their life was brought about by more general changes taking place in
society and the economy. While the Gypsies were happy to accept the
free gifts of food and blankets showered upon them by the Southampton
Committee they were not prepared to accept reforms which took away
their children and forced them into servile, wage-labour employments.
Family ties, the tradition of travelling and an independent self-styled
economy proved largely impervious to the missionaries' pressure.

II
Despite this lack of success the evangelist drive represents a significant
stage in the response of a settled society to the question of the accom-
modation of an itinerant community. Concern over the failure of their
efforts is evident in the existence of a widespread fear that the size of the
travelling population was steadily increasing. In one case this led to the
remarkable assertion that the offspring of anyone with even a remote
claim to Gypsy ancestry still remained a Gypsy, resulting in an alarming
and epidemic increase in their numbers." Such a conspiratorial theory
was rejected by most commentators who in comparison were more con-
servative in their estimates. George Smith of Coalville, a noted philan-
thropist, estimated the Gypsy population at between 15,000-20,000
which, when added to the numbers of all other travellers on the roads,
resulted in a total of around 30.000.'- His method, though, was far from
 GYPSY-TRAVELLERS: THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY RESPONSE 59

reliable relying on generalizations from his limited experience of Gypsies

around the Midlands and London. He assumed that each family consisted
of six members and that the ratio of 1,000 Gypsies for every 1,750,000 of
the inhabitants of London would hold true for the rest of the country.
Policing authorities were concerned less with counting heads and more
with curbing a tendency to migrancy which appeared to be worsening."
Such fears may not have been entirely misplaced and it is possible that
the number of van- and tent-dwellers could have given the appearance of
being on the increase. As the century progressed the extent and duration
of the circuits travelled by the Gypsies showed signs of diminishing in
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scope and shortening in time. The Gypsy-travellers were tending to

remain closer to, and within, the major towns and conurbations in semi-
permanent encampments. As the number of such sites, or van towns,
grew, so the Gypsies were being increasingly sought out by a variety of
groups and individuals. Whether the motives were philanthropic, official,
charitable or hostile, the result was that more Gypsies were found and
new sites discovered. Despite this there nevertheless remains a difficulty
in confirming or denying the belief in the increase of numbers of
itinerants. The number of travellers on the road at any given time would
have varied with such factors as the season of the year, the inclemency of
the weather, and the vagaries of the different trades carried out by the
nomads. Moreover, an important obstacle preventing accurate enumera-
tion was the practical problem of ensuring that all travellers were
included. Some would have accidentally missed the census officials by
being on the move when the count was being taken or else hidden in some
secluded location. Others would have regarded these figures of authority
with suspicion and fear, deliberately choosing to avoid any contact. Even
when given census papers they often removed to another part of the
country before they could be collected. Furthermore, the timing of the
census would have excluded travellers still in winter lodgings and persons
such as horse-dealers, basket-makers and tinkers who had been listed
under occupational categories. Even though any attempt at enumeration
has to be qualified by these considerations the Census Reports provide
the best, if faulty, indicator.
The 1841 Census was taken on 7 June and that of 1851 much earlier on
31 March, but from then on the data on travellers were collected some-
time during the first week of April in order to coincide with the emerg-
ence of travellers from their winter quarters and the beginning of summer
migrancy.1J The distinction between barn and shed-dwellers and those
preferring tents, caravans and the open air has been maintained in the
following figure for the reason that these categories represent markedly
different groups. The Reports for 1891 and 1901 further subdivided these
categories according to gender revealing that among the barn and shed-
dwellers there were in 1891 2,548 males and 601 females, falling to 1.317
and 328 respectively in 1901. In contrast the figures for dwellers in tents,
caravans and the open air were 6,921 and 5,913 in 1891. 6858 and 5716 in
1901. The implication is that the lone tramp, vagrant, tramping artisan
 60 IMMIGRANTS AND MINORITIES

FIGURE 1
Number of persons found dwelling in barns and sheds, and in tents, caravans
and the open air (England and Wales), 1851-1901
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1851 1661 1671 1M1 1691 1901

Note: The returns for 1S41 and 1911 did not distinguish between the two types.

and wandering agricultural labourer were more likely to be listed in the

former category, with the nomadic family groups in the latter. The
distinction is important because the trends of the two groups move in
opposite directions, the one showing a decline and the other a significant
rise. It is possible only to speculate on the reasons for the increase. The
answer is not to be found in later enumeration for the count followed the
established pattern of being taken in early April. Natural population
growth could account for part of the upward movement, perhaps allied to
improved methods of enumeration. Although the actual size of the Gypsy
population would therefore appear to be increasing, in most cases it was
merely the belief this was a trend that proved most important in stimulat-
ing renewed demands for reform. Missionary work continued throughout
the latter decades of the century yet faith in the effectiveness of voluntar-
ism came to be replaced by cries for active control of the vagrant
'menace'.
 GYPSY-TRAVELLERS: THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY RESPONSE 61

III
A central figure in the new campaign to enforce the settlement of the
travelling population was a man who surmounted the obstacles of child
labour in the brickyards to become a noted philanthropist and campaig-
ner for the reform of legislation regarding children. The importance of
George Smith of Coalville in regard to the itinerant question rests on his
tireless campaign to bring the Gypsy problem to the public notice. He
repeatedly petitioned Parliament for legislation, published several mono-
graphs and took good advantage of the pages of newspapers and periodic-
als to make his demands known to a wide audience.
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At the age of seven the young George Smith followed his father into the
brickfields of Staffordshire, working 13 hours a day. He managed to leave
behind the slavery of child labour by attending night school and educating
himself from books purchased out of the extra wages obtained by working
nights at the brick kilns. He rose to the position of manager of a brick and
tile manufactory before moving to Coalville to take charge of a clay
works. Unable to forget the horrors of his childhood experiences he
campaigned for new legislation concerning the employment of children,
incurring in the process considerable hostility from within the trade which
eventually resulted in his dismissal in 1872. Although suffering again from
extreme hardship and poverty. Smith continued with his endeavours, first
demanding the reform of the canal population. Having seen the success-
ful passage of the Canal Boats Amendment Bill (1884), he turned his
attention to the Gypsy question." His attitude to the people was uncom-
promising in its hostility, fed by a desire to redress the balance upset by
the efforts of novelists to paint the Gypsies white:
To dress the satanic, demon-looking face of a Gypsy with the
violet-powder of imagery only temporarily hides from view the
repulsive aspect of his features. . . . The dramatist has strutted the
Gipsy across the stage in various characters in his endeavour to
improve his condition. After the fine colours have been doffed,
music finished, applause ceased, curtain dropped, and scene ended,
he has been a black, swarthy, idle, thieving, lying, blackguard of a
Gipsy still.1"
His criticisms were comprehensive, ranging from education and morals
to diet and dress. Instead of scenes of sunshine, freedom and romance.
Smith substituted squalor, wretchedness and poverty. Taking his know-
ledge from first-hand experience of the Gypsy encampments in the Mid-
lands he saw only a people who - . . . live like pigs and die like dogs'.'" In
his opinion, the tents and camps were even more filthy and disease-ridden
than the overcrowded cabins of the canal boats. To add to this state of
affairs Smith was horrified by the ease with which the Gypsies escaped
inspection and regulation. By adopting a nomadic way of life, he claimed
they avoided taxation, rents, the Inspector of Nuisances and the School
Board Officer. In short, he saw them as living in defiance of every social.
 62 IMMIGRANTS AND MINORITIES

moral, civil and natural law. Whether viewed from an educational,

religious, sanitary, economic or political perspective, he considered their
reform essential. If left unchecked their parasitic existence would, he
claimed, delay the spread of civilization and material progress. In his
attempt to awaken the public conscience to the seriousness of the prob-
lem he conducted an extensive campaign through the columns of national
and local newspapers. In 1879 alone he brought the matter to the atten-
tion of readers of" the Birmingham Daily Mail, the Daily News, Derby
Daily Telegraph and Reporter, the Daily Chronicle, the Standard, the
Sunday School Chronicle, the Weekly Dispatch and the Weekly Times. He
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also spoke at Social Science Congress meetings in 1879 and 1882, and
commenced a lecture tour in 1885 addressing gatherings at the Young
Men's Christian Association in Leeds, Hull and elsewhere. In 1887 he
gave papers to the Association of Public Sanitary Inspectors and again at
various YMCAs and literary societies. However, he was perhaps best
known for his published monographs and persistent Parliamentary lobby-
ing.
His first book on the subject, Gypsy Life: being an Account of our
Gipsies and their children, with suggestions for their improvement, was
published in 1880. A charitable reader would excuse Smith's tendency to
exaggeration by arguing this was merely a device to illustrate in graphic
fashion the need for urgent reform. A less sympathetic and more critical
reader would take exception with a poorly-written work which combines
anecdote with hearsay and a small amount of factual information derived
from limited personal knowledge. Every antipathetic stereotype was to
be found in the pages of his book: immorality, illiteracy, drunkenness,
criminality, disease, child-stealing and vice. From his experiences of a
few camps he generalized about the condition of the Gypsies in all parts of
the country. Although his later books"1 do not show quite the same degree
of distortion the tone nevertheless remained the same.
One result of Smith's well-publicized endeavours was that he came to
be acknowledged as a recognized expert in the field, evidenced by his
appearance before the Royal Commission on the Housing of the Working
Classes (1884-85), when he spoke on behalf of the Gypsy children.
However, his greatest attempt to influence the legislature was through his
persistent lobbying for a Moveable Dwellings Bill. Many of Smith's
proposals were incorporated in various drafts repeatedly put before
Parliament between the years 1885 and 1894, presented by Charles Isaac
Elton, Thomas Burt and Matthew Fowler, respectively members for
West Somerset, Morpeth and Durham. Although Smith was to die with-
out witnessing the successful passage of the Bill through Parliament,
partly due to a consistent and vocal opposition from the conservative
Liberty and Property Defence League, he could claim to have succeeded
in elevating the matter to a position of national concern. Two Select
Committees reviewed the question in 1887 and 1909, and the provisions
demanded by Smith emerged in other enactments and bye-laws. Smith's
other major contribution was to popularize another vision of the Gypsy-
 GYPSY-TRAVELLERS: THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY RESPONSE 63

traveller which challenged the pictures of the 'backwood. sentimental

Gypsy novelists', replacing the romantic Romany with the dirty and
depraved traveller.

IV
There would appear, then, to be a contradiction between the various
representations of the Gypsy, the one romantic and the other antipathe-
tic. I have argued elsewhere that these positions need not necessarily be in
opposition but rather act together in a manner which serves to justify the
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persecution of the travelling population as a whole.'1' Perhaps of more

concern here are the reasons for the increased demands for control. To
approach this we need to consider the nature of the relationship between
settled and travelling communities and the role performed by itinerants in
both pre-industrial and industrial society. It is in the changing aspects of
this relationship and role that the persecution of the late nineteenth
century has to be understood.
The missionaries' view of the Gypsy-travellers as parasites is an indica-
tion of a narrow perception of the links between a settled/host society and
a marginal, mobile social group, rooted in early nineteenth-century
notions of useful and productive toil. The Gypsies' rejection of wage-
labour employments was only briefly and temporarily broken when they
assisted in seasonal farm labour. Otherwise their economy was said to rest
on the principle of doing as little as possible to maintain a minimum
subsistence. Little recognition was made of the economic role played by
the travellers, retaining traditional, independent and family-;based struc-
tures. Yet to see them merely as idle parasites is to simplify and misrepre-
sent. Gypsy-travellers undertook employments which the sedentary
workforce were unwilling or unable to adopt. They toured the largely
inaccessible rural areas offering their various goods and services, and
occasionally labour, to a population not otherwise served. Inhabitants of
rural areas welcomed the travellers as purveyors of news, sellers of cheap
goods, repairers of general household items, seasonal labourers, and
itinerant entertainers contributing their musical talents to village feasts
and festivities. They sold horses, fruit, pots, pans, needles, pegs, baskets
and fortunes; sharpened scissors and knives; repaired umbrellas and
bottomed chairs; assisted in the harvesting and picked hops. The variety
of usefulness of these services ensured that the Gypsy-traveller fitted with
relative ease and harmony into a predominantly agrarian-rural economy.
Their way of life offered no conflict with traditional patterns of work and
leisure. The problem did not become acute until such essentially pre-
industrial forms showed signs of transformation, a product of the onset of
industrialization and its incursions into the countryside. The develop-
ments of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries saw changes in
both town and country which had an important impact both on the
travelling way of life and on the nature of the relationship between the
settled and itinerant communities. It has already been suggested that the
 64 IMMIGRANTS AND MINORITIES

contribution made by travellers in filling the gap in the rural supply and
demand economy was far from insignificant. Yet with improvements in
the systems of transport and communications, the diffusion of the con-
veniences of the city into the countryside, and the expansion of the
railway network, this gap was being adequately filled from elsewhere.
Permanent retailers were distributing similar items to those hawked by
the Gypsies at a lower cost. The nature of the goods hawked also suffered
from the pressure of competition from industrially-manufactured pro-
ducts. The process which had begun by the time John Hoyland was
preparing his book in the early part of the century had advanced
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immeasurably by the latter decades. Increasingly the articles sold were

not of the Gypsies' own manufacture: industrially-produced goods were
thought to yield greater profits for less physical effort. Baskets were
bought and resold rather than home-made and, as Charles Godfrey
Leland noticed, within days of the end of the hopping season the Gypsies
went 'almost en masse' to buy baskets in Houndsditch.-11 It was even
suggested that hawking had become merely an excuse for begging and
fortune-telling as house-dwellers were no longer prepared to buy items at
the door which could be purchased more cheaply elsewhere.:I
The service trades were also threatened with the appearance of cheap,
new manufactured goods contributing to the decline in demand for tink-
ers and repairers. Similarly, the disappearance of wakes, feasts, street
parades and the like from the countryside calendar, brought about by the
development of formal time discipline and the segregation of work from
leisure," limited the opportunities for the Gypsy musicians, bear-leaders,
acrobats, dancers and singers. The other mainstay of their employment
spectrum, temporary seasonal labour, was also being challenged by the
advance of mechanization and the tendency to hire agricultural labourers
on a permanent basis.
The lists of pressures, trends and developments acting to challenge the
structure and form of the Gypsies' economy is as impressive as it was
irreversible. According to contemporary opinion, expressed clearly in the
writings of the evangelists and their supporters, the travellers' resistance
to industrial capitalism's economic formations revealed the group as a
pre-industrial anachronism, a position that was to become increasingly
acute. No economic rationale could be found for their continued exist-
ence. They were no longer needed to serve the demands of the remote
rural areas, goods were replaced rather than repaired, social life was
undergoing a dramatic transformation, and their craft skills lost out in the
competition with mass factory production.
However, the Gypsies did not succumb to the logic of these
developments for two main reasons. First, the trends and changes were
necessarily uneven in their impact. They took place at different times, at
a different pace and with varying degrees of strength in the many
regions of the country. There are a good many first-hand accounts of
rural life in the inter-war period which paint a picture of conditions of
existence unchanged in many essentials from a much earlier period.
 GYPSY-TRAVELLERS: THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY RESPONSE 65

Itinerant scissor-grinders, chair-bottomers and entertainers remained a

regular feature of the country scene well into the twentieth century.-' A
niche therefore remained for the travellers many years after objective
criteria would have denied them an existence. Second, the Gypsies
refused to accept calmly the economic logic of the pressure on their
traditional way of life. They recognized the need for change and sought
to adapt where necessary, adjusting to changes in their market and
abandoning old trades in favour of new and more suitable activities.
Although modifying their itinerant circuits, the location of their sites
and the nature of their self-employments, these features nevertheless
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persisted as the chief characteristics which distinguished the group from

the settled population. Moreover, it was precisely these aspects,
increasingly brought into sharper relief, which formed the kernel of the
clash with settled society. In the early nineteenth century the conflict
existed only in an embryonic form and the negotiation between the
contrasting ways of life was able to be mediated through a combination of
police surveillance and the voluntary efforts of missionaries. The failure
of the Gypsies to disappear meant this informal response was replaced
by a more consistent campaign operating through a reorganized police
force working alongside a developing network of local authority
administration and backed up by new legislative initiatives. George
Smith was a leading figure in this new stage but he was by no means
working alone, simply representing the most public and vocal of the
opposition to 'gypsying'.
Opposition at a local level came from various quarters each seeking
the most effective and immediate solution to the influx of travellers into
their particular district. Police, local residents and officials of the new
local government administration combined to form a thorough system
for the surveillance of the travellers. The Sussex police even formalized
the procedure by keeping diaries which recorded the location of sites,
names and numbers of Gypsies, date of arrival and proposed date of
departure." Elsewhere the police forcibly removed the Gypsies,
magistrates approved orders prohibiting encampments, landowners
resorted to physical violence, and council officials waved a series of
summonses. While George Smith had been disappointed in not seeing
the enactment of the Moveable Dwellings Bill he would have taken
some comfort from the range of other legislation able to be turned
against the Gypsies, including the Hawkers and Pedlars Acts (1871.
1881, 1888), Commons Acts (1876, 1899), Housing Act (1885), Public
Health Act (1891), Local Government Act (1889), and Children's Act
(1908). Regulations were in force governing the Gypsies' camps, health,
abodes, employments and education. Councils which claimed to be
especially affected supplemented these with their own bye-laws. By
1906 these had been adopted by 86 urban authorities, 57 rural authorities
and two metropolitan borough councils. A further 66 had been added
within three years.-'* Legislation affecting travellers was therefore
extensive though this should not be taken to suggest that the legal process
 66 IMMIGRANTS AND MINORITIES

was necessarily the means preferred to solve the problem. Recourse to

the law courts was just one method of many. Harassment and persecution
proved to be the often favoured procedures because of their short-term
effectiveness. The nomadic issue remained a problem largely because the
mobility of the people meant that the cause of the complaints disappeared
soon after they arrived. Only when the Gypsies were long-stay and semi-
permanent residents did more positive action have to be taken. The
forceful removal of the Gypsies from sites in Blackpool, Birmingham and
Llanelli showed there was no reluctance to extend persecution to its
logical conclusions when the occasion demanded.2b
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A survey of the historiography of British Gypsies in the nineteenth

century therefore reveals a duality of approach based on a response to the
group which identified them either as a separate race or as an itinerant
parasite. Both types of sources gave rise to a host of stereotypes, some
sympathetic and others antipathetic. These have remained as central
elements of the popular response even though both act to distort the real
picture by offering either a romantic or hostile caricature.
DAVID MAYALL
De La Salle College,
Manchester

NOTES
1. G.F. Black, A Gypsy Bibliography (Edinburgh, 1914). An earlier provisional edition
was published in Liverpool in 1909.
2. D. Binns. A Gypsy Bibliography: A Bibliography of all recent Books, Pamphlets,
Articles, Broadsheets, Theses and Dissertations pertaining to Gypsies and Other
Travellers that the Author is aware of at the time of Printing (Manchester, 1982).
3. The first series of the Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society ran from 1888 to 1892,
prematurely terminated by a decline in the Society's fortunes. It was revived in 1907,
with the second series continuing until 1916, a third from 1922 to 1974, and a fourth
from 1974 to the present.
4. E. Trigg. "Magic and Religion amongst the Gypsies of Great Britain", D.Phil., Uni-
versity of Oxford (1967), and Gypsy Demons and Divinities: The Magical and Super-
natural Practicies of the Gypsies (London. 1973).
5. The Egyptians Acts of 1530. 1554 and 1562 provided for the deportation and capital
punishment of all 'Egyptians' who remained in this country.
6. This matter is discussed in greater detail in my Gypsy-Travellers in 19th Century Society:
Nomadism, Images and Responses (Cambridge, forthcoming).
7. A notable exception to this general demand came from Samuel Roberts. No less eager
for their reformation and conversion Roberts refused to accept that force and compul-
sion were necessary. See S. Roberts. "A Word for the Gipsies'. in his The Blind Man and
His Son (London. 1816): Parallel Miracles: or, the Jews and the Gypsies (London.
1830): The Jews, the English Poor, and the Gypsies; with a proposal for an important
improvement in the British Constitution (London. 1848). For a discussion of Roberts
and his views see S. Roberts. 'Samuel Roberts of Park Grange. Sheffield. 1763-1846",
Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, new ser.. Vol.5. No.3 (1912). and C. Holmes,
"Samuel Roberts and the Gypsies', in S. Pollard and C. Holmes (eds.). Essays in the
Economic and Social History of South Yorkshire (Barnsley. 1976).
8. See A Clergyman of the Church of England. The Gipsies; or a narrative, in three parts.
 GYPSY-TRAVELLERS: THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY RESPONSE 67

of several communications with that wandering and scattered people; with some thoughts
on the duty of Christians to attempt their instruction and conversion (York, 1822);
Wesleyan Methodist Magazine. 3rd ser., VII (1828).
9. J. Crabb. The Gipsies' Advocate (London, 1832); J. Rudall, A Memoir of the Rev.
James Crabb. late of Southampton (London, 1854); A Summary Account of the Pro-
ceedings of a Provisional Committee associated at Southampton with a view to the
consideration and improvement of the Condition of Gipseys (c. 1830); Report of the
Southampton Committee for the amelioration of the state of the Gipsies; and for their
religious instruction and conversion. August 1827-May 1832 (Southampton, 1832); J.
Baird. The Scottish Gypsy's Advocate (Edinburgh, 1839); First Report of the Committee
for the Reformation of the Gipsies in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1840); Dorset County
Chronicle. 31 July 1845; S. Alder. Work among the Gipsies (Chobham, 1893).
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10. Judith Okely has provided a convincing argument for seeing Gypsy-travellers in ethnic
rather than racial terms. The distinctiveness of the people and their culture can be
attributed to a tradition of itineracy and need not be associated with notions of blood
purity. See J. Okely, The Traveller-Gypsies (Cambridge, 1983).
l l . J . Simson. 'Disquisition on the Past, Present and Future of Gipsydom", in W. Simson./l
History of the Gipsies (London, 1865).
12. G. Smith, Gipsy Life: being an account of our Gipsies and their Children, with
suggestions for their improvement (London, 1880), pp.45-7.
13. See the Home Office files in the Public Record Office, HO45/9340/22208.
14. An interesting feature of the Gypsy-travellers' pattern of itinerancy was this tendency
to travel for only a part of each year, remaining in one place during the winter months.
For this period of temporary settlement the group could be found camping on regular
sites, living in one of the van towns which fringed the major cities, or sharing rented
accommodation in the 'mean streets' of London and elsewhere. See J. H. Swinstead, A
Parish on Wheels (1897). p.194; V.S. Morwood. Our Gipsies in City. Tent and Van
(1885). p.89; Annual Report of a City Missionary, 1859, in the London City Mission
Magazine (2 Jan. I860), p.30.
15. For a very useful account of Smith's life and career see E. Hodder, George Smith
of Coalville: The Story of an Enthusiast (London, 1896). See also the entry in the
Dictionary of National Biography.
16. G. Smith, Gipsy Life, p.167.
17. Quoted from a paper presented to the Social Science Congress at Manchester, October
1879. in F.H. Groome, In Gipsy Tents (Edinburgh, 1880), pp.240-2.
18. I've been a Gipsying: or, rambles among our Gipsies and their children (London, 1885);
Gypsy Children: or, a stroll in Gipsydom (London, 1889).
19. See my "Romantic Romany and Degenerate Didakai: Racial Stereotypes and Popular
Writing", in G. Mitchell (ed.). Race, Literature and Empire (forthcoming).
20. Letter to the Standard. 19 Aug. 1879.
21. R.A. Scott Macfie. "The Gypsies: an outline sketch", Folk-Lore Gazette. Vol.1. No.3
(1912). pp.81-2.
22. Sec especially P. Bailey, Leisure and Class in Victorian England: Rational Reereation
and the Contest for Control. 1830-1885 (London. 1978).
23. See sources listed in J. Burnett, D. Vincent and D. Mayall (eds.). The Autobiography
of the Working Class: An Annotated Critical Bibliography, Volume 1, 1790-1900
(Brighton, 1984).
24. Located in the Archival and Public Relations Department. East Sussex Constabulary.
25. Report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords on the Moveable Dwell-
ings Bill together with the proceedings of the Committee, minutes of evidence and
appendices , 1909 (H.L. 199), x. 195: Minutes of Evidence, p.I. para.9.
26. For the Birmingham eviction see the Daily Graphic (13 Oct. 1904), Birmingham Daily
Post (27 July 1905), Penny Illustrated Paper (5 Aug. 1905). For Blackpool: Blackpool
Gazette and Mews (25 Dec. 1908). Lancashire Post (23 April 190S). The Standard (17
April 1908). For Llanelly: Llanelly Mercury (7 and 14 March 1912). Llanelly and
County Guardian (7 March 1912). South Wales Echo (8 and 9 March 1912).